Ten years ago my son was an 18 year old Marine. He was among the first troops into Iraq and went back AGAIN and AGAIN for a total of three deployments.
Three. Combat. Deployments.
I spent four years being batshit crazy because, you know, I didn’t raise my son for that.
Ten years after shock and awe, Dubya is shocking us again with his godawful paintings. His teacher says he’s going to go down in history as a great painter. Mawhahahahahah. Give. Me. A. Break. You can check out some of his work here. Be sure to scroll down to see the nudes. Self-portraits. Damn, you know those suckers will sell just because. And that is so not fair because they are truly mediocre. If that isn’t enough to earn him a place in hell than I don’t know what is.
Oh…maybe his war.
His goddamn effing war, the one that left 4,488 American service members dead, 32,021 injured. And well over 100,000 Iraqis but no one has the exact numbers. Many of them innocent civilians. Children. And then the coalition forces…
The war we BORROWED to pay for, the war that set our economy and our national reputation, straight into the toilet.
Ten years later GWB is painting pictures of himself in the shower. In the tub.
At the end of the day he’ll be able to wash the paint from his hands but there some things he’ll never be able to scrub from his soul.
Holy crap! Today was Memorial Day in the US…and you know what that means…Shopping! Barbecues! White shoes until Labor Day! Flags! Flags! More flags and bunting!!! Because people died and we have to show our respect, right?
Banks closed. Stores open.
WTF??? Well gather ’round, girls an’ boys, ’cause Arty Life has a story to tell you.
Once Thrice upon a time my son was in Iraq.
He was not there for the scenery.
I can say, without a doubt, that I spent all three of his deployments AND the time in between deployments AND the four years after he got out when they could still call him back…I spent all that time dwelling in the various stages of bat-shit crazyland.
That’s right…BAT-SHIT CRAAAAAAAAAZY LAND!
It ain’t easy being a warrior mom. In fact it sucks.
Because war sucks.
On his 21st birthday, FirstBorn told me he felt like he was 40. Said his hair was coming in gray. Well hell, he did some growing up in a way that most of us will NEVER know. But in the end we were lucky. He came home.
But not all of his friends did.
I stopped painting back then, started writing. Writing when life was one-step-at-a-time-make-it-through-another-day-fragile. When every car coming up the lane was cause to stop and hold my breath until it passed our drive.
When I didn’t know if I would ever see my son again.
I wrote. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.
I wrote my heart. And I kept it close. Shared parts of it with one or two friends.
They read it and gently suggested I ‘talk’ to someone.
Someone who wouldn’t have a clue. Who wouldn’t understand. Who didn’t know what it was like to have people shooting at their kid. Don’t think so.
