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April 13, 2006
Daughter of a Soldier - Mother of a Soldier
My earliest memories of my Dad are of a tall, handsome man who came to see me every once in a while when he was on leave from the Army. He and Mom were divorced when I was a baby. Mom packed us up and headed for home, leaving Dad alone in Germany to finish out his service in the military.
Eventually Dad ended up in Vietnam, a place where many young men his age at that time ended up. He would send me letters from that far away, strange place and from time to time, he would come home with a gift, sweep me up on his shoulders and walk across town with me high at the top of the world to go visit some relative or other. He never talked about the war and all that I really remember about that time is that my Daddy was there.
Years later, after Dad finished his two tours of duty in ‘Nam, came back to the States, remarried and settled down, I went to live with him. This was when I came to learn that my Daddy, the man I had idolized for so long, was not the perfect Daddy I had thought him to be. My Daddy was broken.
For years I lived in fear of this man who could go from smiling and kind to an angry, out of control rage in ten seconds flat for little or no reason. The man I had thought was the most perfect man in the world up until I was eight years old was a broken, angry, uncaring man. This realization broke my heart and I think, in many ways, broke me.
Dad worked fulltime, went to school fulltime and tried to raise a family when he was home, which wasn’t often. The day-to-day care of the family was left to my stepmother who really was a Saint, when I look back on those days. There were times I would cry myself to sleep knowing that when Dad got home from work around midnight, there would be hell for me to pay for some transgression I had committed during that day. He would wake me up in the middle of the night to punish me, usually with a spanking and yelling at the top of his lungs, and then leave me alone with my wounds in the dark.
When I was ten he slapped me backhanded across the face and broke my nose. It is still crooked. Another time he backhanded my step mom as he was driving down the road and broke her nose as well.
There were many times I went to school over the years with black eyes and swollen lips. I hid the bruises on my arms and back as best I could. Many times after his beatings I was sure I had a concussion or he had broken a bone in my body. But there was no refuge, no peace for me in his home – ever. Eventually I grew to hate him.
It wasn’t until many years later that I learned about something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how it applied to Vietnam veterans. As I sat and read the symptoms the realization hit me that this must be exactly what my Dad had suffered from all those years. I have read stories of men like my Dad and talked to many vets who were able to tell me some small bit of the horrors my Dad must have faced and how it would have changed him into the monster he was.
War has a trickle down effect. I never went to war. I never served my country in battle. And yet, because of a war in a foreign country, I fought a battle for my own mental and physical survival nearly every single day of my young life.
Five years ago my only son and first-born child went to Army boot camp. He completed his training several months before 9/11. At that time Jeremy was in the Army Reserves and spent his one weekend a month with his unit in Huntsville, Texas and his one week a year in whatever place he was sent to. For Jeremy, it was a dream come true and a way to get a college education since his father and I would never be able to pay for it. He was so proud. I was so proud of my young, handsome soldier. His Grandpa was proud.
After 9/11 we all knew Jeremy would be going to war at some point. At that time we all thought it would be Afghanistan. Not one of us ever considered he would go to Iraq. George W. Bush took our soldiers and invaded Iraq armed with little more than a handful of lies and no plans for any kind of success. Jeremy and I watched the television coverage of the invasion in horror. Jeremy emailed me in the early days of the invasion that he was nervous and couldn’t sleep. He was sick to his stomach about this invasion.
Less than a year later my beloved son was dead.
The true cost of war in a foreign country came home once again, this time with the death of my oldest child and my only son.
My story may not be unusual, the daughter of a soldier who had PTSD who grew up to be the mother who sent her son to war, only to have him return in a wooden box to be buried. For anyone who thinks for even a second that the cost of war can only be measured in dollar signs, think again.
The real cost of war is paid by those who will fight the battles every single day for the rest of their lives.
For me, the cost of war was my relationship with my Dad. The cost of war was the life of my only son. The cost of war was and will continue to be my heart.
The real reason humanity must put an end to war and insist on peace is so other families throughout the world will not be torn apart and broken.
Oh, and Dad, I forgive you. I love you. And now, finally, I understand.
Amy Branham
Mother of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith
Nov. 1981 - Feb. 2004
Houston, TX
Posted by Amy Branham at April 13, 2006 09:08 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Thank you for this very moving essay. Vietnam broke my Daddy too. I was just a baby when he went away, so I never knew him in his care-free days. I saw the look in his face that you described. It just took me years to understand it. The casualities of war include so many of the living as well.
I'm so sorry about all you have endured, and especially the loss of your son. It's for people like him, and for you, that I continue to attend the peace rallies and do my small part to keep standing up against this felonious administration.
Posted by: Lisa at April 13, 2006 05:06 PM
I spent two tours in Viet Nam. Apparently your writers are under the mistaken impression that all or most Viet Nam veterans suffer from some form of PTSD. This is another revisionist myth of the left.
Check the data at the following URL - http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html)
* 91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served
* 74% said they would serve again even knowing the outcome
* There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and non veterans of the same age group
* Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison - only 1/2 of one percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.
* 97% were discharged under honorable conditions; the same percentage of honorable discharges as ten years prior to Vietnam
* 85% of Vietnam Veterans made a successful transition to civilian life
* Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent
* Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than our non-vet age group
* 87% of the American people hold Vietnam Vets in high esteem
Posted by: R.A. Maddocks at April 14, 2006 08:52 AM
R.A., you are in such a hurry to label leftists you are missing the entire point. No one said that EVERYONE who served in Vietnam (or any war for that matter) was totally damaged, but these women loved men who were.
And your "statistics" don't tell the the entire truth or prove your point anyway. My husband graduated from West Point in 1965 and also spent two tours in Vietnam. He almost died there. Severely wounded by a grenade in the stomach, he spent a year in a hospital and was declared unfit for combat, ending his military career (he was a Captain). But, he also went on to a successful business career with an oil company, contributed to society, and made us financially secure. And, for 35 years heroically battled severe depression, which medication finally helped. Maybe he would have been depressed without the horrific experience in Vietnam, but he thinks otherwise.
The point we are all trying to make, that you choose not to hear, is that sacrifices, physical, psychological, and familial, are made by the men and women we send to a war. And, it is unpatriotic, and immoral, not to make damned sure that those sacrifices are made for a right and just reason. And only after every other peaceful means has been exhausted!
By the way, my husband considers himself conservative, but has been opposed to our invasion of Iraq from the beginning, saying it was worse than Vietnam in its impossibility (at least the South Vietnamese wanted our help). Also, for its huge cost and potential for regional disaster. Disgusted with Bush and the Republican Party, he registered as a DEMOCRAT when we moved here to Oregon.
Posted by: Susan Gates at April 17, 2006 01:39 PM