Memories of War

"Today the Fredericton Peace Coalition held a "Bring Our Troops Home" rally in conjunction with those being held all across Canada and the United States on the fourth anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq. Here is the speech I gave.

I was born 49 years ago tomorrow in a little fishing village on the
west coast of British Columbia, the first member of my mother’s
family in over 300 years to be born outside of the United States.
Growing up I remember my mother talking about her mother
who was born just 22 years after the American Civil War, an
event she always referred to as “the late, great unpleasantness”. My mother, in talking about her own life,would tell us about the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. She came out of a movie theatre to hear that her country was at war. She spend her early adult years building bombers and fighter planes that would be used to bomb Europe and the Japanese into submission. My father, when he would talk about the war, would tell us of his time on navy ships, about watching kamikaze pilots crash into the ship next to his. Both my parents would talk about the holocaust and the destruction of Europe. As a child I couldn’t understand why they seemed so focused on war. It wasn’t until years later, I realized that I was born only 11 years after the end of WWII and that to my parents, it wasn’t a distant event but one that was an integral part of their lives.

My parents and grandparents had their lives impacted by wars
that happened either before their time or during their adult lives. My memories are different. A great number of my childhood memories are of war. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on the grass in the front yard of our home surrounded by four leaf clovers. My father told us, that rather than being a sign of good luck, they were the result of above ground testing of nuclear bombs, that was causing mutations to occur in all forms of live, all around the world.

My next strong memories are of new families moving into our
little valley, families of American draft dodgers, escaping a war in a far distant land, made welcome by Canada. Newsreels, this was before everyone had tv and one saw the news played out days or weeks after the fact, in shorts before movies,started to show this war. One became used to the throb of helicopters, the sight of wounded soldiers and dead bodies before you watched the movie you had come to see. A staple of my childhood, Life magazine, made memories of pictures of horror, villages bombed, bodies lying in heaps, soldiers weeping over the dead and children, forever immortalised as naked bodies, running down the road covered in Napalm.

And then we moved across that ocean that seperated us from this war, to New Zealand, a green and quiet land. And new memories were added, physical fights with other children who did not understand that we were Canadians, not Americans. That our country was not involved in this war (or so we thought at the time). That we were the good guys, we welcomed those who opposed the war and gave them a home.

As years past more memories accumulated, names from another
world became part of my vocabulary: Viet Nam, The Tet
offensive, the Ho Chi Minh trail, gooks, tunnel rats, Viet Cong,
the My Lai (mee lye)massacre, Lt.William Calley, Saigon, Kent
State, POW’s, MIA’s, napalm and Agent Orange.

We returned to North America, settling in Salt Lake City where
my friends had brothers and cousins wounded and killed in that
far off land. They wore bracelets with the names of those soldiers missing in action. They told stories of brothers maimed by little children who blew themselves up with hand granades so that American GI’s would die.

Then on April 30, 1975, as I watched tv, I saw a picture that has
stayed with me my whole life, the evacuation of the American
Embassy as Saigon fell to the Vietcong. Rather than the
humilation felt by many Americans, I felt only an ovearwhelming
sense of relief. My young cousin, living in California, would not
have to be drafted, would not go to war, would not die in some
far off land. He would live, unlike the thousands of others, in
both the United States and Vietnam, who died for nothing.

My life went on, I grew up, went to university, married and had
children, a son and a daughter. On January 16, 1991 I was
working in Eaton’s Department store. The day was quiet, on the
entire bottom level of the store there was not a single customer.
It was as if the world was holding it’s breath. As a deadline crept
nearer clerks from all over the store congregated in the
electronics department and waited for another war to begin. At
about 5pm, we began to see the first pictures of Operation Desert Storm, the Gulf war had begun. My son was 8, my daughter 6 years old. For the next 4 months their memories were made of war, of destruction, of the dead. Then the world began to breath again and life went on. Of course there were other wars and other atrocities including Rawanda and it’s horrors, Croatia and Canada’s involvement. But nothing that really touched us, safe here in North America, in Canada.

Then one morning I woke to my son’s urgent voice, “Mommy,
you have to wake up, something horrible has happened.” My
daughter, in the fog of early morning sleepiness had thought that
the same movie was playing on every channel. My son, a little
more awake, realised that the world had changed. September 11,
2001. Planes flying into towers and buildings, bravery beyond
believe, sadness and tears, fear and anger. My children’s world
became a different place, their memories of war and destruction
added to and reinforced. Their world become a place of fear, an
armed camp, a world divided into “them” and “us”. For the past
6 years the news has only been of more war, of more terrorism,
of more death. The invasion of Afghanistan, of Iraq. The
bombings in Bali and London.

Canada, leaving it’s peace keeping missions behind and
becoming an active participant in this war. Canadian snipers in
Afghanistan, earning the “honor” in 2001, of breaking the sniper
long distance kill record, set by an American Marine, in that long
ago war of my childhood. Memories accumulating, my
daughter’s friend Woody, coming home from Afghanistan, not
with honor, but only dead. Now, we wait, wondering, who else
among her friends and aquaintances will come home in a coffin,
how many more friends’ funerals will she attend? 1 out of 10
dead, 1 out of 6 wounded. This is what we, as Canadians, are
told we can expect from this war. This war that is marketed as a
way for us to help the Afghan people even though, upon the
invasion, Canada’s reasons for participating were to defend
Canada's national interests; ensure Canadian leadership in world
affairs; and lastly to help Afghanistan rebuild.

My memories, my children’s memories of war, of death, of fear,
of “them”and of “us”. When will it end? 5 weeks from now I
will become a grandmother. This new life will enter a world
where once again memories will be made that involve war. How
many will have died in this other far off land by the time this
child is aware? How many bombs will fall, how many land mines
laid and exploded, how many “suicide bombers” will take
another soldier’s life, leave others wounded , how many children
will bury brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers or friends. How long
will the people of Afghanistan have their land ripped apart, their
lives destroyed, their memories corrupted by war? I look at my
daughter, ready to give birth, I think of my grandbaby coming
into this world, I look at the children here today and I am
reminded of a song from my childhood, not great music, not
even great words, but true. “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier, I brought him up to be my pride and joy”. As Canadian mothers this needs to be our anthem, this needs to be our ralling cry. Our sons and daughters are not fodder for war, we don’t want their memories to be those of death and pain and fear. We want our children here, at home, not dying in some foreign land or killing someone else’s sons and daughters. It is time that we as mothers, say “no more”. It is time we demand as our right, no more war, no more loss of our children, no more children whose memories are forever impacted by war. It is time to demand of our government that this stops here and now, that our children come home. That Canada brings it’s troops home. Brings them home now.

Too many deaths", I whisper.

Are you listening?