In the stack of back-to-school papers that came home on the first week of school lay a sheet of paper that took my breath away. I had expected it, yes, and even waited for it. Still, I was unprepared.
I hurriedly leafed through my high school freshman’s papers — signing my name here, initialing there — until I saw it. That’s when I dropped my pen and leaned on the kitchen counter.
Do I want military recruiters to contact my son?
It’s a simple question with a deceptively easy answer. With one signature I could basically keep the option of enlisting far from my son’s mind. With one signature, I could plow a different course for him. With one signature, maybe, I could change my family’s history.
But would I?
I guess I had been thinking about this paper since Ford was 2 years old and a reader angrily replied in response to one of my columns, “You don’t know anything about sacrifice until you have a son in uniform.”
Back then, I had balked at the idea. I was literally born into this lifestyle. My mom welcomed me into the world while my dad was on a deployment aboard the USS Franklin Roosevelt. It was his first deployment in a career full of many. (Coincidentally, my future father-in-law was also on that deployment, and my future husband lived down the street from me.) I did not meet my dad until I was 7 months old, and by the time I turned 22 years old my dad had accumulated 11 years of sea duty.
I said I’d never marry anyone in the military because I wanted a husband who would always be home. Pretty much the next day after making such a declaration, I ran into my old childhood friend, Dustin Smiley, who had just graduated from the Naval Academy and was on his way to flight school. We got married less than two years later, six weeks after I graduated from college. Meaning: There were only a handful of weeks between me being one Navy person’s dependent and me being another’s.
Our honeymoon involved moving a dog, a Bronco II and a U-Haul truck across country. Eleven months later, we’d do the cross-country trek again, this time while I was seven-months pregnant. And when our fifth anniversary rolled around, Dustin had only been stateside for less than half those years.
I thought of all these things as my pen hovered over the paper. Did I want my son to also miss out on his child’s birth, first word, first step, first smile?
By the time Dustin and I had been married 10 years, we’d called five different places home. We’d crossed the country, traveled along the Gulf, moved north to south and back again. We had friends in every corner of the world. Dustin had participated in many of their weddings, and their wives knew my children like their own nephews. We’d lived in big cities, small cities, beach towns and everything in between.
Wouldn’t my son be equally blessed by these experiences and friendships if he were to join? Would I really opt him out of that?
And then, with my pen still hovering over the paper, I thought about my friend Theresa, who lost her husband in a helicopter crash before he met their infant son. I thought about all the funerals Dustin has attended and the times he had to notify the service member’s parents.
Wouldn’t I do anything to opt my son — to opt me — out of that?
Later in my writing career, long after that Navy mom had scolded me via email, another reader accused me of not being “military enough.” I wasn’t being true to my history, this reader wrote. I didn’t write enough about the military.
The truth is, there is nothing I can share with you that isn’t colored by my history as a military daughter and wife. It is woven into the entirety of how I view the world. And because of that, there is no way for me to parse out how the good and the bad can or cannot be attributed to the military lifestyle. I’ve had nothing else.
And now, finally, as my husband’s retirement is within sight and the military chapter of my life will close, can I picture myself becoming a military mom? Would I opt in or out of that?
My heart raced as all of these things flooded my mind and I stared at the two options — Will I allow recruiters to contact my son, or will I not? — asking for my check mark.
Ford told me to hurry so he could pack his book bag.
I placed my pen against the paper, breathed in and answered in the only way I knew I could to respect this truth: The decision to join or not to join really isn’t mine anyway.
Maine author and columnist Sarah Smiley’s writing is syndicated weekly to publications across the country. She may be reached at facebook.com/Sarah.is.Smiley.