Letters from War (9 page)

“I believe I will. I truly do.” Britt smiles, but a bit sadly.

A squeal from the kitchen interrupts them. They both go to find Richie on his hands and knees playing with Bailey's food.

As she watches Britt prevent Richie from eating the dog food by picking him up, Beth wants to tell her daughter-in-law she always believed that even though Richard was diagnosed with cancer, he would never leave them. Or perhaps he would leave them when the children were older and married and had moved on. But no—this had been her belief and she was wrong.

God had another plan.

That wonderful saying about God and His “plans.”

“I know what other people think,” Britt says. “But I still believe he's out there. I mean—it felt like we married and then boom, he was in Afghanistan.”

“He was. Do you know that when James was born, we'd only been married a year?”

“How old were you?”

“I was barely twenty-one. A couple years younger than you two.”

“Wow,” Britt says. “I felt like we married young.”

“You did. A lot of our friends married a lot later than we did. But Richard always had a grand plan: marriage, army, children.”

“Sounds like James.”

Beth reaches over and again takes her daughter-in-law's
soft hand. “The master plan has a way of changing, doesn't it?”

“Yes it does.”

“Do you remember the first time James brought you over to our house? Do you want to know something?”

“What is it?”

“I can't believe I never told you this,” Beth says. “When we were in the kitchen and you were talking to Emily, James whispered to me that he was going to marry you.”

“He told me.”

“Yes, but did he ever tell you what I said?”

Britt shakes her head, smiling. “Do I want to know?”

“I said not to rush. I told him that you shouldn't rush marriage, that you have to be certain. It wasn't anything against you. It was just that he was in high school, with plans of going into the army. I always thought,
Just wait. Just wait because I know that road for the wife.
I know how difficult it can be.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said that you never know how much time you have in this life. Then he said, looking into the room where you were, that he wasn't going to take any time for granted. Not with someone like you. James said that once you know, you know, and then you fight to keep knowing. Even if you have to fight the rest of your life.”

For a moment, the young woman across from her
seems lost. The freckles drizzled across her nose are barely visible under the soft glow of the kitchen light. Richie is making grunting noises as she holds him.

“What'd he mean by that?”

“You know, at the time I didn't know. He was just eighteen. But over the years I've come to believe that he meant that if you find something in this life that you believe in and love, you need to embrace that thing and then fight to keep believing and loving it.”

“He really said that?”

“My teen boy,” Beth says. “And that's when I knew. I knew that this beautiful little redheaded girl he brought to my door had suddenly turned him into Shakespeare, romantic and all.”

The tears no longer hide in the edges of Britt's eyes. She silently wipes her cheeks.

“Wherever he is, James is fighting. He's fighting to be back here, standing where I'm standing, holding Richie in his arms, and looking at you and laughing and loving.”

Britt nods and sighs and wipes away more tears.

“I wish he knew that he has a son to hold.”

“I think he knows. Maybe deep down, in some strange and untold way, God whispered to him that you guys had a son.”

“It's hard to think that—to think that he's alive and hurting or that he's dead.”

“I know,” Beth says.

“Am I being selfish asking God to keep him alive?”

“Absolutely not. My dear, you're just being practical.”

“I don't know.”

“I still don't know why God took Richard so early. And there are times, God knows, that I grow resentful and angry. But that's the beauty of prayer. We can talk to God and know that He will hear us. He's heard a lot from me. He knows. He knows and I have to believe that He cares.”

“You, resentful and angry? Please.”

“I'm a woman,” Beth says. “I know how to put on a pretty face and hide the wrinkles well.”

Before leaving the house just after sunset, the two women do what they always do.

Pray.

It's still something that Beth can't fully fathom. This ability to come before the Maker of heaven and the stars and mankind to petition Him. This opportunity to ask.

Not every prayer is answered, and Beth knows this the hard way.

Yet some are.

And everything, every single thing, is part of His plan.

If she didn't believe this, she would break down and would never, ever,
ever
move on.

Being able to share a little of this with her daughter-in-law is a gift.

Even if the gift she shares comes wrapped in pain.

The enemy waits and watches, wanting to destroy any semblance of hope, wanting to dismantle any series of prayers.

As Beth watches the news, a small part of her gets flattened. Like the tread of tires in soft mud, the marks are imprinted and won't go away any time soon.

Beth likes this particular anchor on NBC. She likes the integrity and grace with which he handles issues, like the one he reports about today. Another wave of deadly violence in Afghanistan, another list of casualties. One report details how the soldiers die; another then quickly goes into the seemingly endless war that the locals and Americans are getting tired of.

She turns off the news and sits on the edge of her couch.

Dear Father, be with those families today. Give them extra strength to make it through their loss. Please help them come together and come closer to You.

A name and a number on television aren't just a name and a number to her. She is going to ask a friend to look up those families so she can send them a card. A mother of an MIA to a mother of a KIA. She knows she has a right to send a card and share her condolences. Yet Beth still admits that she doesn't know what they're going through. Not yet.

Is it getting worse or is it just me?

She thinks of the key ring with the carved seed on it, the one she gave to James some time ago. She is reminded of the gift from a friend and what that tiny seed stands for.

Faith.

It was given to her shortly after James was deployed to Iraq that first time. Ironically, the person who gave it to her, who told her never to give up believing, was Josie. The same person who was encouraging her to let go of James now.

I wonder where that key ring is today. I wonder if whoever took James took that from him.

The news is a reminder for her to keep believing even amid the tragedy. Every day, if she carefully waits for it, there will be some kind of bad news coming out of Afghanistan. Yet she has to remind herself why the soldiers are there and what they stand for.

As she finds her car keys to head out of the house, Beth remembers what she told James just before his graduation day.

DECEMBER 15, 2006

They spoke in controlled and deliberate unison, strong and emphatic and concise.

“I am the infantry,” they called out. “I am my country's strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight—wherever, whenever. I carry America's faith and honor against her enemies. I am the queen of battle.”

The words were ones James knew by heart simply because they resided there.

“I am what my country expects me to be: the best-trained soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win.”

They weren't nameless, faceless figures in full dress
standing at attention on this cold winter day. Every one of them was watched over with love by the spectators who stood before them.

“Never will I fail my country's trust. Always I fight on—through the foe, to the objective, to triumph over all. If necessary, I fight to my death.”

The men around James would always be his brothers. They had all arrived at Fort Benning as boys. And they were all leaving as more than men.

“By my steadfast courage, I have won two hundred years of freedom. I yield not—to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds. For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight.”

They were now following in great and mighty footsteps.

“I forsake not—my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty.”

They were now shadowed by legends and ready to step out in the sun.

“I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever.”

They were and would always carry this designation.

“I am the infantry! Follow me!”

The designation as infantrymen.

This was what it felt like to have brothers. Guys who could wrestle you down on the ground and shove your face into the dirt until you hollered in submission. Guys who could mock you about the girl back home and the
way you talked about her all the time. Guys who could stand alongside you and be willing to step in front of you to take a bullet one day.

Brothers.

James had always wondered what it would be like. Boot camp had been a series of out-of-body experiences. The father he barely knew was his drill instructor. The brothers he never had were his teammates.

James thought of this as he stood in the row listening and sounding off and standing straight.

The guys standing around him—they weren't guys to just hang out with. They weren't video-playing buddies. They weren't snowboarding buddies. These guys were of a different fabric and caliber.

This was the Turning Blue ceremony for them, the day before they officially graduated.

It was a simple ceremony, yet the significance could not be fully weighed or articulated by James, his mother, or his sister.

At the end of the ceremony, loved ones were given the opportunity to attach a blue infantry cord to their class A uniforms.

James knew who would have done it had he been there.

But someone else would do it. Someone just as strong and just as proud.

The blue cord distinguished the infantrymen from the
rest of the army and symbolized entry into the brotherhood of infantrymen. This blue cord linked all of them to every infantryman who ever served and would ever serve.