Save The Pandas: Young kids joining the military

Cathy McDermott

A few days ago, my Facebook reminded me that it was my friend’s birthday. I was surprised I didn’t remember since it was a rather close childhood friend, but I guess that’s one of the perks of having a Facebook: I never forget birthdays anymore. We hadn’t actually talked much in the last year, because he recently joined the Marines. He had been busy finishing boot camp and training. But to make myself feel better for my lack of memory, I called him up.

After singing happy birthday, which trust me was no treat for him, we did the whole catching up and what’s new deal. I rambled on about how busy I was and how confused I am about what to do after high school and all the cliché complaints of a 17 year old girl. After I finished my update, he told me he was leaving for Iraq the next day for three years.

At first, I thought he was kidding. Throughout the six years we’ve known each other, he’s played countless pranks on me. From telling me he’s moving to Italy to claiming he has a skin eating disease. I’d always find out he was joking, and then he would spend 30 minutes laughing about it. He always claimed he just wanted to know how I would react to certain situations.

But this time, he wasn’t joking.

I’m a military brat. I grew up with military kids on a military base. I’m used to my dad leaving for long time periods. But the kids I grew up with always complained about the strict rules of the military, and they swore they would never join the armed forces. So much for all their talk. About one out of five of my childhood friends now serve in the military.

At first it baffled me that I was actually old enough to have friends my age serve. It seems like just a couple weeks ago we were challenging each other to water balloon fights. It just didn’t seem right that this boy, who used to trip me every time I passed by him in the hall, was allowed to go fight in a war.

I was in shock. I didn’t know what to say, so I started making stupid jokes about how girl-deprived he’s going to be and to make sure to bring sun tan lotion. He went a long with it, probably sensing I was extremely uncomfortable talking about it. But there’s no real way to avoid the subject.

The image of him as a 12 year old boy as I once knew him, with pants way too big for him, holding a gun, kept running through my head. Parents, teachers, and mentors spend their whole lives trying to shield their children from violence, and yet, here is this kid being thrown into the middle of a war, after only a year of being in the military. He sat there on the phone for two hours, reassuring me that he was going to be okay.

I always knew that the war was going on, but I never realized who was in the uniform fighting it. Many of them are barely legal boys who think that the world is their playground. It was encouraging to hear the courage and confidence in his voice, but part of me keeps thinking about all the possible "what ifs?" Can kids at such a tender age really be ready to go through such a life-altering situation? Even if he comes back fine in three years, he won’t be the same.

So happy 19th birthday, here’s a gun, you’re going to war.

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