Plague of the Unknown

As you know my second son (SN2) is an infantryman in the US Marine Corps. He was actually trained as a mortar man and when needed he mans one of the 60mm tubes (the Mk 244 I believe, I was a swabbie and I leave all this hands on killing stuff to the professionals) but like all Marines, he is an infantryman (Rifelman) first. Back in May he deployed with his unit to Afghanistan and is currently somewhere in the Nawa District of Helmand Province. A hot and hary place. Lots of killing going on there and in other nearby districts, lots of IED's and various booby traps and mines left for the Marines to find.

Not a good place. I mean, if you were a Drug Lord and wanted to vacation there and see where most of the world's Poppy comes from then this is the place. But, not if you are a parent of a Marine Infantryman sent there to "Make Peace or Die" (which is the motto of the Battalion my son is assigned to).

We have not heard from him in more than 30 days and we are tense and of course, worried.

We have had many sleepless nights here in the Swamp (++). A couple of times a day, every day, I do a Google and Bing search for the latest of what is happening there in the AF. I also search for photo's and pictures that are released from either the military or the many news agencies that have embedded reporters and photographers. Looking for pictures or video of SN2, anyting that would show him and confirm to us that he is still Ok. I have found the occasional photo of his actual unit; sleeping in holes dug into the hard earth looking not unlike open graves, another of them carrying a wounded comrade to a waiting medivac helo, and another of most of his platoon strung out along a long canal firing their rifles at an unseen enemy.

Some nights are worse than others when we hear in the news or find a posting about fatalities from the AF. "4 Troops killed in Southern Afghanistan" was one such just this last week. There was little else in the actual AP report, two killed by gunfire and two more in an explosion, all Marines. We watch the street all day and night worried that the next car to pull up our street is the "Official Use Only" government car with a CASREP and a Chaplin onboard. New's this bad is always delivered in person. Late at night I lay there trying to sleep, I am one of those that hears everything when I sleep and when it's a car on the little road I come up out of snooze to DEFCON2. Which of my neighbors are still out I think, doing a quick mental inventory of cars in the driveways on the street, could it be someone out for a late night snack? Was it someone simply lost and was just going around to get back on the Pike and out of town? The car drives past our house and turns down the Rabbit Run. I return to DEFCON4, close eyes, sleep comes eventually. Until the next drive by that is.

So, for the next day or two I scan every little bit I can off the Web, checking for names on causality reports. These ones this last week were from the North Carolina unit and I feel relief, my eyes tear and I have to pause to control the emotions that overtake me. I weep not just for the loss of more fine Americans but because of the guilt I feel, because the names mean, they were not mine. Guilt. Yeah, the guilt from thanking god it was some other parents son that was killed. And I hope and pray for all the rest of them over there. Not just the Marines but the Army guys too. And yes, the many Navy and Air Force personnel as well, they all have skin in this game.

I know they all can't come home and my shame and guilt is that I don't care so long as just this one does.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

++ Note - The Swamp is the local term for the geographic area here in Pennsylvania that I live and Blog from. In a future post I will elaborate. JvT2