My dad wrote this about a year ago and it really meant a lot to me. So, I wanted to share it with you.
Is That a Lot?
By Anthony Johnston
After a lifetime of learning, from kindergarten to college, boot camp to 14 overseas military deployments including three tours in Iraq, I should not have been surprised to be reminded that not all learning - or teaching - is done in a classroom.
I drove down the road with my son, listening to the news and talking about life. Of course the 'surge' in Afghanistan has received a lot of coverage, and arm-chair quarterbacks debated our two wars. A little later on in the newscast they talked about death tolls, the decline in Iraq and the increase that was anticipated for Afghanistan. That was when my 12 year old son Jack got serious.
He asked about the people that had died in Iraq and Afghanistan. He asked about the ones that I had known personally, and then he added them up. I knew it was 4380 killed in Iraq and guessed around 1000 (at the time) killed in Afghanistan and he came up with 5380 dead Americans.
Then he hit me with a question I may never be able to competently answer.
He said, "Dad, is that a lot?"
It took me a moment to recover enough to fumble for something that would pass as an answer. The next few minutes are still a little hazy to me. But in the meantime several thoughts bounced around in my mind.
I remembered that about 20,000 US service members were killed in a couple months in the Battle of the Bulge, and that we lost an average of 600 Americans every single day in the Civil War, I also thought about the 400,000 that gave their lives in the World War Two - 1450 of them on D-Day alone. I thought about the nearly 3000 killed in the Chosin Reservoir in two weeks during the coldest Korean winter on record back 1950, and the 52,000 men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam.
But before you think me a hawk, or try to guess where I'm going with this, let me say that I've held onto the hand of a young Marine, as heroic medics and doctors fought in vain to save his life. I looked at his 19 year old face and wondered who he was, and what he could have become? These days I speak regularly with his family and I know as much about him as I know about my own nephew who served with me there. I know that he had a girlfriend and that he wanted to be a chef, together they wanted to start a family and open a restaurant. I know that his mother was a Native American and that had great influence on his life, and his culinary skills, and that she had recently died. I realize-as much as a stranger can-that he had so much to offer and that the hole left where his life once was will never be filled.
I've seen the faces of dead young men while working in the hospital in Iraq, and they all stay with me every day, (and more nights than I'd care to think about.) I remember, as I documented and packed the belongings of one young man, wondering where his dad would be when he got the news? I thought about his reaction later when his sons' personal effects arrived at their home? I envisioned his dad viciously tearing apart the package that we had carefully prepared looking for that picture of the two of them at the lake, or the Saint Christopher medal that I had folded into a sheet of paper that contained my feeble words of sympathy and my dried tears.
I've also witnessed firsthand the carnage of the innocents caught between the forces of good and evil. I've seen entire Iraqi families killed by insurgents, their penalty for believing that we could help them to live free. I worked with a young girl who was the lone survivor of another attempted family execution and still to this day think of the mental anguish and physical pain she lives with- if she is still alive?
I've also seen the physical and emotional aftermath of combat in the faces of some young men and women I've met during my own 18 month treatment at the VA. Our arguing only serves to further isolate them from what they most desperately need - the support of the American people.
I believe that despite all the rhetoric, we are fighting for freedom for the Iraqi and Afghan people and the suppression of those thoroughly committed to terrorize us. There isn't much middle ground in the War on Terrorism. When our enemies are committed to our annihilation as a Nation there isn't much room for discussion.
Civil War General William T Sherman supposedly coined the phrase "War is Hell." He is also credited with "War is cruel and you cannot refine it" and "War at best is barbarism." I say he was an optimist. I believe that for each "Nuke 'em till they glow" there is an opposing "Make peace, not war" and in the end, like almost every other subject ever debated, the truth or the solution probably falls somewhere in between?
I have a great friend and mentor who is a doctor, we both root for Notre Dame, we both enjoy a good cigar and we have had occasion to sit down over a cold beer and talk about life. But we are polar opposites on many things like war and politics. We have had great exchanges over the years, we respect each other's opinions and in the end, we always walk away friends. Why we can't, as a Nation, do the same is beyond me.
But for now, we are where we are and the lack of sacrifice in these current wars - at least for the great majority of our Nation, contributes in my humble opinion, to the disconnect between both sides.
So as much as I believe in what we are doing, I also understand and appreciate those who disagree. For I have seen firsthand what war can do to your soul.
I awkwardly tried to put all these emotions into words; I tried to explain to my son that if he, or one of his sisters, were one of those 5,380 lost lives that I just can't imagine that sacrifice. I stumbled around the conversation awhile longer. I talked about the historical references a little more and the personal losses I've witnessed and finally just decided to drop it. I thought that maybe when he was older he may be more prepared to try to understand what cannot be understood.
Then he asked what I would do if it was him? I told him I didn't want to talk about it anymore.
And I pray to God each day that we never have to know the answer to the last question.
"5,380 lost lives….yes Jack, that is a lot."
