'We' Got Him

[RunInRed 16,407]

Wow. Very moving. Very powerful...

‘We’ Got Him

By REBEKAH SANDERLIN

In early November 2004, I kissed my husband goodbye as he left for his first deployment to Afghanistan. I told him, my voice trembling as he walked toward the war, “Go and kill Bin Laden.”

Seven and a half years later, after three deployments to Afghanistan and five elsewhere, we learned with the rest of the world that the terrorism mastermind was dead. We watched on television as people around the country waved flags and sang the national anthem, celebrating the end of a man who had caused so much pain for so many.

It was a very good day, a day that stood in stark contrast to that day in November 2004 when my and my husband’s portion of the war began.

I tried to look brave that day as I bid goodbye to the love of my life, wondering if I would ever see him again. Just three weeks earlier I had given birth to our first child and, with that tiny baby hanging from the crook of my arm in his infant carrier, I watched my lifeline walk away. I had no idea how to be a mother or what to expect from the coming months. I was alone in a military town where I had very few friends and no family members, and I didn’t want my husband to know that I was scared.

For his part, my husband, though thrilled to have a chance to do his job and to join the fighting, carried burdens of his own. He was worried about leaving his young family and, I suspect, apprehensive about what he would find on the other side of his flight. Together, we tried to channel that Greatest Generation-style resiliency our grandparents had shown when their war had come calling. It helped that we fervently believed that if we had a chance to make the world a better place for our son, we had to take it. It was our duty — as patriots and as parents.

The coming months and years were, indeed, very difficult. A soldier I sat next to in the family briefing before that 2004 deployment was the first member of my husband’s unit to die in Afghanistan. It seemed like every few days after that I got another shaky-voiced call from an Army wife telling me, through her tears, about the latest casualty.

I made tuna casseroles, lasagnas and brownies to take to the tender new war widows, always feeling inadequate, awkward and guilty about my own good fortune. I handed over my flimsy foil pans and stood before these women in stupid silence. I kept my funeral dress freshly dry-cleaned and hanging in my closet, never knowing when I’d need it next. Halfway through the second Afghanistan deployment, I had to buy a new funeral dress, so picked and worn was the old one.

Sometimes, when he called home the line would go dead, leaving me to wonder for hours or days if the worst had occurred. During Skype sessions I could see the circles under his eyes. The intensity of his situation was palpable, even over the spotty, time-delayed connection.

As the casualties continued, I began to plan, in excruciating detail, how I would handle his death. It — my husband’s death — became not an “if” but a “when.” Planning it — what I would say when I was notified, what songs would be played at his funeral, even how I would wear my hair — gave me a satisfying sense of control at a time when I knew that I had none. I believed that if I faced my greatest fears head-on, maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t be quite so scary. And it worked.

The downside of my pragmatism, however, was that I distanced myself from a man who was very much still alive. I became so good at doing things on my own that I became unable and unwilling to incorporate him into my life, even when he was home. For his part, he openly pined for Afghanistan, the place where he was most useful, wanted and needed. Sometimes I wished that he would stay there, too.

Five years of chaos and uncertainty — that’s how I remember 2004 through 2009. The burden never eased, not even when my husband was home, because we always had friends deployed and another deployment for my husband always loomed. Life became the thing we patched together in between bouts of war, and patched together badly. The cumulative effect of years of struggling took a toll on our marriage, and in 2009 we filed for divorce.

Our story is not unique. As far as Army stories go, ours is practically universal. Actually, we are the lucky ones. So many others have fared worse. He is alive, and he has all of his limbs and faculties. I have twice battled through depression without being tempted into suicide. Many other military families have not been so fortunate. We have been able to mend our broken marriage and will, someday, be able to put these years of fighting and fractures behind us.

And so, together, my husband and I stayed up to watch the breaking news about the death of Osama bin Laden on television. We were just as excited as everyone else, perhaps even more so. For us Bin Laden’s death was more than a national victory — it was a personal triumph, the taking back of years of our lives and vindication for all the friends we’ve lost.

But watching the spontaneous celebrations outside the White House and ground zero, we were struck by the paradox inherent in the cheering crowds. People, mostly in their 20s and 30s — the same age as our friends who have died and been forever injured — were cheering, “We got him!”

We.

For nearly a decade of war, it hasn’t felt much like “we.” During this, the longest war in our nation’s history, a war fought by less than 1 percent of the population, the rest of the country has seemed mostly to ignore those of us in the military community, tuning in only for our scandals or deaths. And so “we,” in the context of victory, most accurately applies only to the very small number of men and women who have given more than any of us had a right to ask.

The show of patriotism right now is touching and inspiring and reminiscent of the unity felt by all in the days after Sept. 11, 2001. This truly is a time of national celebration. An evil man who tried to engineer our demise and who caused untold grief for so many is dead, and we should all celebrate that victory. But this war is far from over, and tough days are still ahead. It is incumbent on we, as a nation, to share in the burden as well.

Rebekah Sanderlin is an Army wife, a mother of two and a freelance writer and editor who lives near Fort Bragg, N.C. She is on the National Advisory Board for Blue Star Families and blogs about military family life at http://www.rebekahsanderlin.com.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/we-got-him/?hp

[Grumps 3,704]

That is a good article. Thanks for posting, but I don't feel right celebrating ANYONE'S death. I am glad he is dead, but I won't celebrate. It is sad that he was so evil that he needed killing.