My son is readying for war. If only I could be sure of what he was fighting for
By DEBORAH JONES
On March 29, in a firefight with Taliban insurgents, Private Robert Costall became the 12th Canadian killed in the Afghanistan mission. When the news slammed home, tears filled my eyes, and I turned to my family photographs. I impulsively touched the pictures of my elder son as a child splashing in a stream, balancing in a tree, standing proud on his first day of school. I was right there, off camera, ensuring the tree was not too high, the water not dangerously swift. The latest photo of my son, now 20 and a part-time infantry soldier with the Canadian Forces Reserves, was taken in a military helicopter. (I'd rather not give his name for safety reasons.) He wears a uniform and a broad grin under his helmet. As he trains for a near future mission, most likely in Afghanistan, I'm no longer behind the lens. Now it's Canada's government that protects my boy from unnecessary danger. And every time a soldier dies in Afghanistan, that reality turns my heart cold.
I was dumbfounded four years ago when my son, then underage, asked permission to join the reserves. He's a student, a writer, a volunteer, an athlete--a social guy with a world of options. Perhaps, I wondered, we should not have enrolled him in the Boy Scouts. Maybe he was influenced by his four grandparents who served in uniform in World War II. Was he inspired by his stint at Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, named for the former Prime Minister who founded the United Nations peacekeeping missions and won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize? Was it 9/11?
I understand that a part-time job in the reserves offers adventure and a sense of purpose unmatched by delivering pizzas or busing restaurant tables. My son has rappelled down cliffs, forded rivers, orienteered through deep bush, learned first aid, driven army trucks. He's training to help in domestic floods and fires and, yes, for armed combat. (It's the latter that keeps me awake nights.) I once imagined that when my kids grew up, we'd bicker over university grades, money, the keys to the car. Instead, we debate far weightier issues: fundamentalist terrorism, Canada's military role, the achievability of military goals. Our debates will pause only if my son is offered an Afghanistan tour and either turns it down or is deployed.
My son says he wants to make a difference in the world, and experience humanity firsthand. He says he wants "to help victims, keep civilians safe, help set up an education system. That's huge." Huge, indeed. I have come to accept his choice and respect his determination. I no longer argue that the military is a last resort, that he could contribute better through economics and diplomacy. He points out that he's young, that his education will take years, that he can contribute now.
I know why my son is in the military. But I don't know why Canada's military is in Afghanistan. If we're protecting human rights, why not fight the genocide in Sudan? If counterterrorism is our goal, why not focus on states that support terrorists? In the wake of 9/11, there was a clear case for international force to oust Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and their al-Qaeda guests. Now Afghanistan's new government, still religiously conservative, relies on outside military protection against feudal warlords, religious extremists and foreign agitators. Nobody knows if the government can prevail, if it will uphold human rights, or how long the militaries from liberal democracies will prop it up.
Canada's obligations in Afghanistan end in 2007, and Ottawa must decide whether to recommit. But Stephen Harper's Conservatives, like Paul Martin's Liberals before them, haven't answered the tough questions about our mission. Both parties have refused to hold parliamentary debates on our priorities, our response to human-rights violations, our relationship with U.S. forces and where else our military might be used. Our media are awash in opinions, but decision makers aren't engaged in debate.
Though a scared mom, I am no appeaser, pacifist or isolationist. I agree with my son that Canada has a duty to protect those who cannot defend themselves. But Afghanistan is complicated, Canadians' questions deserve answers and the festering doubts dishonor our soldiers. As a soldier's mom, I want Ottawa to convince me that we haven't sleepwalked into war in Afghanistan. I want to know we won't wake up one day realizing, like the Russians before us in Afghanistan or the Americans in Vietnam, that we've been fools in a war without honor. When it's all over, I want all Canadians to be able to meet my son on the street, and look him in the eye.
Copyright Deborah Jones 2006
~~~30~~~
Published: The Vancouver Sun, November 10, 2001, Op-ed column
Deborah Jones
"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Chuck him out, the brute!'
"But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot;
"Yes it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
"But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool --you bet that Tommy sees!"
-- Rudyard Kipling
It had not occurred to me, before last May, that a child of mine could ever be a soldier. Then, one spring evening, I was with a bunch of teens at a cinema when a recruiting ad for the Canadian Armed Forces showed, featuring exciting activities, thumping music and information on signing up. It seemed more thrilling than the movie we'd come to see.
I noticed the avid interest of my son beside me and experienced one of those vertiginous moments when a parent stumbles into the generation gap and finds nothing solid underfoot.
I'm flummoxed by my son's interest in soldiering -- stronger since the Sept. 11 terror attacks -- because, like most Canadians born since the Second World War ended, I was lucky enough to see war as something that happens elsewhere.
I'm thankful, of course, for the hard-fought victories won by all who came before. I'm grateful beyond words for their bequest of freedom and prosperity. I wear poppies each November and each Remembrance Day I go with my family to a cenotaph to pay respect.
But unlike our forebears, precious few of my generation ever thought of ourselves or, more terrifyingly, of our children as fighters. Instead, we took pride in Canada's role in peacekeeping, paid but vague lip service to national defence. We let our armed forces atrophy for lack of public support or interest.
Why? Well, there was Vietnam, about as disillusioning as warfare gets. We watched the Americans draft their young into the war's maw, watched public support wane, watched the politicians pull out, watched Americans greet returning veterans not with respect and gratitude and honour, but with disdain. If the military was ever on a pedestal in public esteem, Vietnam knocked it off in one swipe.
Then there's the fact that a whole generation was encouraged to question everything. "Why?" we asked as schoolchildren when teachers tried to force-feed us dates of fusty old battles. "Why?" we demanded angrily as university students, when we learned that war is what happens when we fail at politics, economics and diplomacy.
Finally, for anyone with a shred of an illusion that war is glorious, Hollywood debunked it with movies about venal generals and stupid decisions that killed thousands.
Today most Canadians are closet peaceniks. We may not have worn the '60s garb, yammered about flower power or marched in rallies, but most of us bought the slogan: "Make love, not war." So tell me, please, what does a closet peacenik say when her child dreams of joining the military?
Captain Tyrone Green is a nice guy, and sympathizes with my concern. "Fright is a common theme with parents," he says. But Green's mission at the Canadian Armed Forces recruiting centre on Pender Street is to help fill 5,000 jobs, which is how many the forces are short of the full complement of 60,000 people. Green wants my kid, and your kid, and maybe you and me, too, because anybody under 52 can apply.
Green readily admits there is danger, that since the Korean War some 130 Canadians have died in the course of duty, from causes ranging from traffic accidents to land mines. "We have to be honest, it is the military. This is our defence tool for Canada, and if called upon to serve, a member has to serve in whatever mandate the Canadian government wants us to," he says
Hold on, I think. Why should my son trust his life to the Canadian government, run by the same folk who can't even get it together to negotiate a softwood-lumber agreement? On the other hand, military service could build character, could be an honourable thing to do and, like my son, I see the appeal of serving my country.
Marvin Westwood, a professor in the counselling psychology program at the University of B.C., sees both sides of serving in the military. Sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion and Veterans Affairs Canada, he is developing programs to help returning soldiers recover from traumatic experiences that may have left them with problems such as low self-esteem and addiction. Westwood, however, also understands military allure, especially for young males seeking adventure. "A lot of soldiers find it a positive experience, and they become more disciplined and capable in their careers back here," he says. "They're given big responsibilities and learn, through intense negotiations, team management, communications and cultural conflict resolution."
But there's a big difference between our new war on terrorism and the peacekeeping of most Canadian missions since Korea. Those missions brought out the compassionate, honourable and humane side of soldiering. "I learned from all the veterans there is no good war. But there is good peacekeeping, and peacemaking," says Westwood.
We Canadians are confused about this war on terrorism, finding the target of our wrath as elusive and shadowy as the men who started it all on Sept. 11. We can only hope that we've got it right, that, as crazy as it all seems, helping the Americans bomb Afghanistan to smithereens is the right course of action. Time will tell.
But no matter the outcome, there is one thing at stake in this war that we absolutely cannot get wrong. It's our obligation to respect and honour our men and women in uniform when they come back, no matter how their mission turns out.
Right now my son is a tad too young to join the military. It may be a passing interest, or he may pursue it when he's of age. But whatever he does, I'd hate it if my child did his duty and at the end, like the Vietnam vets, came back to less than a hero's welcome.
At the Cenotaph tomorrow, while paying homage to those who served before, I'm going to spare some thoughts for those soldiers fighting for us in the war on terrorism.
Copyright Deborah Jones 2001
About this website: Text and photos by Deborah Jones except where otherwise noted.
Deborah Jones with her sons as children
One Canadian Soldier
I fear a war without honour