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This is My Nephew. This is My Nephew in Iraq.
I didn’t know he existed until 2006, when I met him at his graduation from Fort Benning. His “Turning Blue” ceremony.
My nephew Johnny.
His mother is my sister, but I didn’t know her between the time that I was 5 years old, and the time that I was 41.
Funny, how families are, when the divorces are as numerous as the kids.
His mother is my sister from my dad’s second marriage. We were separated when I was five, and she and her twin sister were three. Their mother took them to Arizona, and I and my two older sisters were taken to Connecticut by our mother shortly thereafter. Meantime, our dad married a third time and had another daughter, who lived in New York.
Fast forward to the next century, when out of the blue, our father dies, back in 2003. No one gets in touch with my dad’s second wife, to let her know her ex-husband is gone. So the twins have no clue that their dad is dead.
Three years later, their mom goes online to the Social Security website to update her own information, and lo and behold, she discovers her ex-husband passed….and no one told her.
Made the rest of us, in my family, look like shit, no?
Yes.
But this woman, who only remembers three little girls from her husband’s first marriage, has the guts to call the oldest daughter out of the blue, after getting that eldest daughter’s information from the online obituary, and the rest is history.
She tells us that not only did she bring our two little sisters up on her own out west all these years, but that she and our dad conceived a 7th daughter a few years after their divorce.
No one in my family is able to handle this news, but me. I have no problem believing that my dad could cover this up, and so I embrace my newly found sister, and am invited to my 19-year-old nephew’s graduation from Fort Benning at the same time.
I meet my nephew, I meet my sisters, and discover that the one who was conceived after my dad had already divorced her mother and married another woman and had another daughter (my little sister in New York, who I thought for years had been my dad’s last) is indeed my sister, and I love all of them and they all seem to love me and everything is hunky dory.
Until I get home and have to fight the vitriol of the youngest daughter from my dad’s third marriage, who refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the youngest daughter from his second (not to be confused with me, who is the youngest daughter from his first). And what’s really weird is the youngest daughter from the second marriage looks like my twin, only a few years younger. She looks more like me than the youngest daughter from my dad’s third marriage does. (And BevD has the nerve to wonder why I drink and write lousy poetry late at night….Ha!).
So I have these battles in my life. Over my father and whether this youngest daughter is really his (as if she weren’t for Christ’s sake, when she looks just like me). Meantime, Johnny graduates from Fort Benning, moves on to another training camp for special training, and now he’s in Iraq.
I met him for one weekend, but he’s the reason I’m fighting our occupation of Iraq. He’s the reason I turned Dem. He’s the reason I hate Republicans, when I grew up a Republican through and through.
Families get torn apart sometimes. Countries do, too.
But the people in those families, and the people in those countries, they have lives too.
Don’t discount them. Don’t think “that’s someone else’s son/nephew/grandson/husband”.
They are our kids. They are our family.
Don’t think “that’s someone else’s country. They are some other person’s problem”.
We haven’t met them yet, but they are our own.
Comments (41)
Thanks for sharing Lis. And even though some people can't appreciate your poetry, I enjoy it. :D
May 17, 2008 1:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Spade. I enjoy it too.
May 17, 2008 1:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
beautiful.
Keep up the posts.
May 17, 2008 1:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
My nephew has enlisted into the Navy just recently. He is heading into the seals, and will start BUDS in a few weeks, I hope he makes it through.
Funny thing, he hates bush, thinks he is a fool, distrusts republicans, and hopes this Iraq mess is done before he goes active. But he wants to serve his country. He also did not do so well in school and never found his niche, a lot of things go into the decision to serve in the military.
I hope your nephew stays safe, and that there wil be a less violent world for all of us in the near future.
May 17, 2008 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
First -- thank you, Cricket. Few understand me these days so I appreciate it.
RE: Johnny joined the military because he (like me, back in the day) dropped out of high school and got his GED instead.
Johnny wants to be a cop or a fire-fighter, he's not sure which, yet. But when he tried to apply, he was told that having a GED was not enough. He was told it made him look like a drop-out.
He signed up for three years in our military without even telling his mom first.
Now he's over there.
I admire your nephew's decision just as much as I admire my nephew's.
But I sure as shit wish that they had not needed to make it.
Me, I dropped out of school back in the 80s and then became a secretary. From there, I moved up to bigger titles, bigger pay, and now I'm a secretary again, but with bigger pay.
Some days, I'd rather be making a statement. I guess that's what our nephews are trying to do.
May 17, 2008 2:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Don’t discount them. Don’t think “that’s someone else’s son/nephew/grandson/husband”.
"They are our kids. They are our family."
That was true during Vietnam when those of us who had the gall, or the courage (take your pick), to oppose US involvement there were accused of "attacking the troops," the countering of which began even before the current illegal US occupation of Iraq as, "SUPPORT THE TROOPS!"
Most of which has always emanated from chickenhawks who hide behind the flag in effort not to be recognized for what they are: so cowardly and fearful that they look for the loudest-mouthed pro-tough guy/war authoritarian, and then stand at attention with him. All of which is easier and safer than actually BEING a "troop".
Thus we have the phenomena of John Wayne, a serial draft-dodger, being the biggest "patriot"/recruiter for the military, especially for the Vietnam debacle. And Ronald Reagan, another extremist right-winger, being more pro-war than anyone who actually served in the military and actually saw war face-to-face.
But they, unlike Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney, did actually wear "the" uniform -- in Hollywood movies.
So who is the gravest of liars? Those who point the way to war for others, while avoiding it themselves, wearing their lie as a uniform in movies? Or those who point the way to war for others without that visual lie, but lie nonetheless about their contempt for those who actually fight and die in those uniforms?
I not only opposed the policy -- not "the troops" -- that sent "the troops" to Vietnam (and Grenada, and Iraq, and Iraq); I also had brothers, cousins, sons, fathers, and friends among those troops. It is the chickenhawks and cowards who send others to war who don't even begin to be aware of that connection -- the connection for those who both criticize the policy, and have brothers, etc., in the military -- because they have no connection to any of the danger either directly or indirectly. None of those have connection to anyone in any danger.
Jenna Bush just got married, which made the front page of all the major newspapers. So now I suppose she has a legitimate excuse for not being in Iraq. But her twin sister is still eligible to prove her belief in and support of her father's project in Iraq by putting her precious little ass on the line there. (Not, though, Cheney's daughter: it's too late for her because of "don't ask, don't tell".)
I wonder why these oh-so-manly chickenhawks -- Bushit and Cheney -- have daughters but not sons? Is their cowardace in their genes?
A major cause of the ending of US involvement in Vietnam was the draft "lottery" -- that is, a fair draft that included within its compass the sons of the white middle- and upper-middle classes that supported that involvement. THEN the war ended. Let's suppport an equivalent draft -- but this time include as eligible for draft the daughters of the warmakers.
May 17, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jenna Bush got married and so now she has an excuse for not going to Iraq? Are all the soldiers over there single?
Jenna's actual excuse for not being there is that she inherited her father's genes. You see, Dubya LOVES war. He just doesn't like to, er...FIGHT in them himself.
May 17, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Spain, you understand, the courage of the young bull, who must enter the ring never having been approched by a man on foot or stuck by a picador's lance, is measured by how many times his mother will attack the picadors before she learns to fear the lance. The first Medal of Honor for a woman in Iraq was awarded recently to a woman medic who exposed herself to gunfire over and over as she dragged wounded soldiers to safety, shielding them from the gunfire with her body. That you somehow associate cowardice with women is incomprehensible.
May 17, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing substantive to add - merely sending my thanks for a deeply moving post and belief that there are many others out there such as me whom you have touched.
May 17, 2008 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've inspired me to maybe try and look up my aunt. I remember my cousin when he was a baby. They lived in San Francisco, and I'd drive there from L.A. with my high school friends sometimes. Once, cousin Alex was teething, and I walked around and around with him, feeling so sorry for his pain, and my aunt and uncle got a much needed evening off. They moved to England, and I finished Art School. They weren't able to make my wedding. My dad died six weeks after I got married, and my uncle did show up for his funeral. He was a great comfort to me. He's the one that told me about my dad's life as a revolutionary.
When my father's mother died a few years after he did, no one told us. My uncle swooped in, took all her assets and went back to England.
A cousin finally called my mom because no one had bothered to do anything with her body. My mom paid for her cremation and burial.
Yeah, families can be shitty. I felt really guilty because after my dad died, I tried to call her once a week like he used to, but she never bothered to learn English, and my spanish is awful. She also cried everytime I called, but we were poor and I didn't have any money to go visit her in Miami. Eventually, I stopped calling. I will always feel bad about that.
My uncle subsequently died and my aunt and cousin came back to New York. My cousin actually went to Yale, and I had no idea.
My aunt called me a couple of years ago to get together, but I was going through a bad time with my daughter's illness and the disintegration of my 20+ year marriage.
I guess what your post reminded me of is the past is the past, and it's the future that matters. How we deal with it is the important thing.
You set a wonderful example Lis.
Thanks.
May 17, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, this is such a hard one. A lot of those young men and women in Iraq are doing exactly what they want to do, especially the ones who pass through Fort Benning on their way to other training. Many are not doing what they want to do, especially the ones who signed up for the Guard and have, in some ways, been drafted into a disastrous occupation. But the adventurous ones, filled with fighting spirit, are owed a Commander In Chief who will never squander their indomitable spirit, and the ones who signed up to serve at home are owed a Commander In Chief who will only call upon them as a last resort.
May 17, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen to that.
May 17, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy. Nothing left but stylings now-- bully, beast or silly actor.
Intermission. The audience is chomping pop corn.
May 17, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
People were looking for you yesterday. I've discovered something beyond politics. Language lessons.
May 17, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Close...but I'm bored with political discourse. Only practicing for stylistic points --heading up to the window to work stylings as practice for wok on a libretto. I was sorry to leave Germany, by the way. My wife is fluent in Kraut-speak,, and claimed that the only reason I liked Germany was that my German is so bad, I didn't know how mean people were treating us. Not the linguist in the house here.
May 17, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are wise. Yes, it's easier to appreciate people's diversity when you don't understand them.
Billy, you need to learn the languages that will get you back through time. The others are wasted.
May 17, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone help me out here. Having read what others say about these characters above for the last week, am I seeing three posters who are actually the same person?
May 17, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
No.
May 17, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
So all that stuff about Billy Glad and Cypher being able to write like different authors was a joke? And I read all the time that Desidero is really Billy.
May 17, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
They always appear to be having some sort of internal monologue. That's what makes them appear as one person. And who knows, they may very well be one person.
May 17, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, my sweet little taste of pineapple, we are three.
May 17, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awwwwww. I've always maintained that you are no bite some bark and all sweetie...
{which ofcourse should make you a great fan of Obama. *chuckle*}
Re: Solaris post below – Interesting reference.
We're not real and we know it?
Are we all suffering from nostalgic longings, within TPM, of a different time?
You didn't like Soderbergh's version? I watched that before I knew that another version existed. Tarkovsky's was so different, his version presented a soporific, almost tedious scatomancy of a planetary mind. Unusual presentation.
May 18, 2008 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
No were not, we are one, except when we argue and then like 5. Why are you contradicting me? I'm not. Then who did? I think it was her. When'd she get here? Dunno, there when I woke up. Bloody hell, another costume to fix up. Can she handle the Matrix? Seems like a natural. Everyone here? Here. Here. Here. ereH. Okay, supply check - fire? water? mythical powers? Good, let's roll.
May 18, 2008 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm going to distance myself from politics at my diary. Time travel has been fun. I am stunned by the fact that some of the people here have become so real to me. The nearest thing to it I can think of is Tarkovsky's Solaris.
May 17, 2008 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are all reproductions of TPM's memories?
Interesting. No, seriously.
May 17, 2008 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you mean Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. That tunnel scene was an assault on film, though I liked the Sacrifice a lot. You can try the Cyberiad if you need a return to some humor. Space sometimes gets way too serious.
May 18, 2008 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lem's book, Tarkovsky's film?
May 18, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, there was a great socialist urge to fight back against the West's 2001, and Tarkovsky proved just the man to out-dull Kubrick. Well, most of Soviet culture did that, but you get the point. Anyway, Lem's books are quite worth perusing.
May 18, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have employed several young men that were the sons of acquaintences or neighbors. Young men that had finished high school and did not know what to do next with their lives. My husband and I own a restaurant and usually we can find some kind of work for these guys. They moved on from restaurant work to the service, because they had no direction, no goals. One of them had to be one of the worst waiters I ever had and he knew this too. He became a Marine and shipped to Iraq. Another joined the reserves, he went to Kosovo, he dug up the bodies. And another went to Sarejevo, to keep the peace. Two are back and still dont know what to do. No jobs, no future. One wants to be a contractor, because of the money, his mom begs him not to do it. Two of my waitresses joined the army, because it will pay for school and they have been promised jobs in their fields. So far,no word about their jobs. Why cant kids afford college anymore and tuition is sky rocketed? No jobs, no hope only false promises. CHANGE has to happen in November.
May 17, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Marine Corps as employer of the last resort? Pretty funny.
May 17, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lovely post, Lis. Thanks!
May 17, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the post. I agree.
I'd also like to say that Jenna Bush is not the president. She's just a nice kid in love and on her honeymoon, so why can't we allow for a little love in our world that we're trying to make better? I see too many posts bashing Jenna.
May 17, 2008 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me or did anyone else get confused at the family relationships? No matter, get to know each other and help each other, and love each other. I have 6 sisters and 2 brothers and only 2 sisters will even talk to me. Apparently the rest were only pretending while the parents were alive, once they passed, they quit pretending and shut me and each other out....so sad.
May 17, 2008 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you kidding me?! Jessus! Get a grip.
May 17, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good to know its not just my family that's screwed up with the long lost siblings. I hope your nephew gets back here intact.
Your lil sister who wont ackowledge the youngest other sister is just hurt. Maybe she'll learn to deal with it.
My answer to my own crazy family bullshit is to not deal with any of them. I'm better off without them anyway.
May 17, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good to know its not just my family that's screwed up with the long lost siblings. I hope your nephew gets back here intact.
Your lil sister who wont ackowledge the youngest other sister is just hurt. Maybe she'll learn to deal with it.
My answer to my own crazy family bullshit is to not deal with any of them. I'm better off without them anyway.
May 17, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
As for chickenhawks maybe it does run in the blood. I cite this from a Victor Davis Hanson article called "Why Study War? - Military history teaches us about honor, sacrifice, and the inevitability of conflict."
Anybody who knows anything about Cheney's favorite columnist knows Hanson's one big claim to fame was a pretty good history he wrote years ago about ancient Greece. He's been living off that book his whole adult life.
In this article he writes about the necessity of teaching military history and recounts trying to convince his PHD advisor back in the late 70s to let him write his dissertation on agrarian warfare in ancient Greece. As part of the spiel he said "I could bring a personal dimension to the research, too, having grown up around veterans of both world wars who talked constantly about battle."
I have relatives who fought in WW2 and Vietnam. They've never "talked constantly about battle."
Anyone who has seen a Ken Burns documentary about war knows what it's like, these are painful memories, pulling them out of them isn't easy or rewarding. I know because I've done it with my father and Uncle Harry.
Watching your best buddy's bomber inexplicably explode on take off. Bolting terrified into a dark movie theater unarmed during Tet in downtown Saigon as Vietcong guerrillas round the corner. Curling up as far down under a seat in the first row as you can get, as the enemy brings up the house lights, praying no one will sell you out and something, anything, will distract them before they saunter down to your row, find you cowering there and casually splatter your brains all over the floor with a AK-47. And then to have the rattle of gunfire down the street do exactly that, send them running off the way they came to the sound of guns, as you sprint the other way to a back exit with your thudding heart banging in your ears. Marching two days straight to Bastogne with Patton's Army in wet freezing boots and almost losing your toes to gangrene. Then marching into Germany over body after dead mutilated body, German, American and undetectable. Seeing an MP who didn't get a chance to avenge Pearl Harbor cripple for life a Japanese prisoner after the war who was equally disappointed he didn't get a chance to die for the emperor.
These aren't stories my relatives told constantly.
They told them to me once, with sadness for long dead friends who will never grow old and angst they felt til their dying days. They tried to forget these stories, they make grown men cry and men don't like to cry, especially in front of their sons.
Maybe Hanson's people are different. Maybe he comes from some ancient berserker Viking stock who revel in the barbarism of war. But I doubt it. To me Hanson is just a war lover. He's never seen it, and if his relatives "talked constantly about battle" chances are they never have either.
May 17, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Statistically, this may not be too far off; in a one-layer-of-abstraction sense. The gender of the child is determined by the sperm, and fathers who drink heavily are more likely to have girls than boys. It's one of the strongest determining factors.
May 17, 2008 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
LisB, nice post.
May 17, 2008 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice sentiment, LisB, made poignant by the description of a bit of your personal story. Thanks for sharing. You sound like a big-hearted person.
May 18, 2008 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lis!
This was a recommended post all day yesterday.
:)
Just thought you ought to know.
cheers
(clink)
May 18, 2008 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
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