"I've been thinking about smoking pot," he told me. "Then maybe they wouldn't let me go back. I don't want to go back but I have to or I'll get thrown in jail forever." "Yeah," I said, "but I think that's better." I was thinking "better than killing people" but he could read my mind and I didn't have to say it out loud.
"We have to do everything they tell us," he said. "No matter what it is. They say "you go beat that guy up or you shoot that guy and you have to do it. Direct orders."
I was speechless. I couldn't imagine what I could say that would have any meaning. I tried to tell him that I know of a conscientious objector--that I might go to a birthday party that's a benefit for this courageous hero--but all I could really do was let him tell me his story.
Brian's mother and sister cared for his little boy while he was fighting in Iraq. He showed me a large scar on his arm "That's where a little ten year old Iraqi boy stabbed me with a knife for my candy bar! For a candy bar! They really hate us over there," he told me. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not for Bush or anything. I hate him just as much as anyone else."
"I'm pretty sure this is all about oil," Debbie said to me, eyes wide and nodding her head.
"Yeah, I think so too." I couldn't tell her I work for a feminist anti-war organization. That would sound scary and so far away and I wanted to stay close to these people. "My brother sews all you guys up in the tent hospitals," I told Brian instead.
He told me about being in Saddam Hussein's castle; reporters came from Stuff Magazine to film them and reported back that they were all having fun. "We read that magazine" he said, "but we weren't having fun, we were just building stuff there, you know, mostly doing construction work there."
He talked about downtown Baghdad. "It's ruined" he said, "all the walls are falling down, it's real pretty, where it's not messed up. It was a real pretty country but it's just a mess now."
All of a sudden he turned to Debbie. "They put some real nice roses on Jeremy's grave this weekend," he said.
She smiled brightly and nodded. "That's really good, baby."
He looked towards me. "That's my seven year old son." My heart sank for the second time. I thought of my brother who also lost a child. I wanted to say "I'm so sorry for your loss" but the words wouldn't come out.
"He was riding his bike before I came home on leave," he said. "He was riding out of the driveway and got hit by a car."
I asked how his mother was doing.
"She's doing fine, I mean, she's really sad too, but it's my sister that's having the worst time. She was the one that was watchin' him at the time."
He reached into his wallet and soon I was staring into the bright intelligent face of a smiling little boy. He was big for his age and looked older than seven. Looking down at his picture, I couldn't imagine that he was dead.
"He looks really smart," I said.
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