3 sons

Last night, I let my 2 oldest sons watch Saving Private Ryan.

I heard that…….that collective **gasp** from the internets.

“Why would she let her 10yo see such a movie?”

“What kind of mother are you?”

Well, I am the kind of mother who has 3 sons who like to play war.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that creates games such as “Call of Duty” and “Medal of Honor” and the only thing that is more unfortunate is that there are parents who buy these games for their kids.

My children do not have these games, but do have friends that play them. Not just here, but back in Mayberry as well.

My boys are forbidden from participating, and while we were at the RV park, a young man played these games openly in the rec hall, and my children told him they were not allowed to play, and could he please put something else on.

Regardless of this, I know they long to play and probably will some day when they are not under my supervision.

I listen as my boys go into the forest behind my house to play war. I hear fake machine gun fire. They use sticks and water guns as weapons. They build bunkers and my oldest reads everything he can get his hands on about WWII. He brings home history books and devours them. He talks about being a marine.

My father was a WWII veteran and his uncle was a pilot in the Airforce. His uncle Jimmy was shot down over the Sea of Japan, killed in action. I have held in my hands the telegram that was sent to my great-grandmother, and I wept with my grandmother as, 50 years later, we sat on her living room floor and read it again. She told me how her mother fell to the ground as she saw the car drive up the road to the farm. She knew what it meant. Jimmy was dead.

My father, in a fit of rage, went straight away and enlisted in the Navy. Jimmy and he were very close, and his heart was broken. He knew what he was doing. He saw his grandmother screaming and crying about Jimmy. He entered the Navy at a time of war, knowing what could happen. He felt called to duty, and he went. There are men like that today in Iraq, and I respect, honor and admire their courage.

My son has my father’s dog tags, and Jimmy’s wings. Jimmy went to war to protect our country from unbelieveable evil, and he died.

War is not clean and neat, like the war in a video game. When you are done with it, “Game Over” does not flash on the screen. The bodies don’t disappear. You don’t have to call your buddies family back home to tell them their son is dead. In these videos you don’t have to watch your mother or grandmother crumble to the ground because she has been told her son is dead.

So I let my sons watch Saving Private Ryan.

Cory sat in the big chair with Bill, his father’s arm draped around him. Cody sat on the ottoman at Bill’s feet.

I cried with my boys during the opening scene at Omaha Beach.

I cried when Mrs Ryan fell to the ground as she saw the the car pull up in front of her house and an officer and a priest step from the it. I imagined my great grandmother falling to the ground. I imagined myself falling to the ground, weak with grief. I told the boys at this point that that is what happened to their great-great grandmother when she saw the car drive toward the farm.

I told them “I have three sons.”

And they watched Saving Private Ryan.

You may disagree with my choice. You may think a 10 year old should not be exposed to such a thing, and that is your right. The fact is, I am their parent, not you.

The fact is, I don’t want my sons to think that war is like a video game. Fun, clean, exciting. I don’t want them glamorizing it. I can’t tell you how many stories I read in the paper about soldiers coming home from Iraq saying things like “I had no idea when I enlisted that I would actually shoot real people.” “I thought I could enlist, get a free education and see the world”. I just couldn’t believe the naivety. I wanted to slap them and scream “What the hell did you think you were doing? Did you think that the army and marine core train people to be tour guides?”

In a world where it has become okay to virtually kill people, I decided that my sons would see Private Ryan.

Hearing Tom Hanks say “I just know that with every man I kill, the farther way from home I feel” was worth it.

My sons heard this letter recited at the beginning of the movie:

“Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln.”

5 sons. 5!

This morning, I asked them how the movie made them feel.

Cody said “War is horrible’. It is nothing like I thought”.

Cory was silent. I asked him if he still wanted to be a marine, and he shook his head hard “no”.

One day in the future, if he does decide to be a marine, it will be an informed choice, not one of mystical bravado and glory.

I let my sons watch Saving Private Ryan because sheltering them from the truth and allowing them to believe that war is a video game could cost them their lives.

We live in a time of war. I pray for peace. I pray that the draft never happens again. I pray that my sons never have to know first hand what killing another human being feels like.

I pray that I never have to see that car drive up in front of my house.

***editted to add that I just realized that it was Veterans Day. Duh. Happy Veterans Day an a big thank yo to all who have served and died for our country and rights to freedom!