Daughter of a Soldier - Mother of a Soldier

[WestHoustonDem]

Gold Star Mom Amy Branham posted this at http://www.houstondemocrats.com/archives/2006/04/daughter_of_a_s.html

<snip>My earliest memories of my Dad are of a tall, handsome man who came to see me every once in a while when he was on leave from the Army. He and Mom were divorced when I was a baby. Mom packed us up and headed for home, leaving Dad alone in Germany to finish out his service in the military.

Eventually Dad ended up in Vietnam, a place where many young men his age at that time ended up. He would send me letters from that far away, strange place and from time to time, he would come home with a gift, sweep me up on his shoulders and walk across town with me high at the top of the world to go visit some relative or other. He never talked about the war and all that I really remember about that time is that my Daddy was there.

Years later, after Dad finished his two tours of duty in ‘Nam, came back to the States, remarried and settled down, I went to live with him. This was when I came to learn that my Daddy, the man I had idolized for so long, was not the perfect Daddy I had thought him to be. My Daddy was broken.</snip>
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[NMDemDist2]

1. K & N

:cry:

[babylonsister]

2. That is heartbreaking. Just imagine how many angry young

soldiers will be returning home, and the impact their PTSD will have on their families. :cry:

[Lisa0825]

3. "My Daddy was broken"

I can definitely identify with that. Viet nam broke my Daddy too.:(

[darkmaestro019]

4. Mine too.

I wish she had an email so I could send her a useless but well-meant hug. I wish she'd included HER CHILDHOOD as one of the things that was taken from her. (She did, but not in so many words)

My (step)Dad and I are much better now--time has healed a LOT of his wounds, but all that time and all that negativity will never go away. I wish he'd gotten some kind of help, but he was convinced somehow that if you ever seek any kind of therapy that "everyone" will know and you can never get a job and nobody will trust you ever....on and on....I've had various forms of therapy and obviously it has never come up in hiring for a job and nobody knows unless I tell them, but you can't tell my stepdad anything. I think maybe those were excuses to keep him from having to face, whatever it was.

I still love him. I used to hate him, but I managed to stop at least that much as flatly unfair. I love him; I like him, but there's a lot I don't like about him. You can see it in his face when he shuts off his mind. It makes me think of someone cradling a wound so no one will thump into it and hurt them again.

[Lisa0825]

5. wow... you really explained it well.

I used to hate my dad too. He never softened up until he was dying, and we had about a year to make peace. But I could see the same things in his face, like you described. :hug:

[darkmaestro019]

9. (hug) And here I felt grabby, sort of jumping in

I'm sorry it took that long for you (and I hope that isn't why my stepdad seems to have regained a little of his, humanity)

But I'm very glad you got that year. It probably didn't make up for anywhere near all of it--but I bet it closes that awful loop-of-memory with something like peace so you can sleep at night.

(hug again)

[WestHoustonDem]

6. Just pm'd you Amy's email addy n/t

[darkmaestro019]

10. Thank you ! when I'm less newly-awake and bleary eyed

I'll try to organize, something eloquent and non-incoherent to say to her. Maybe this (gesture at the hugs, past and future) is something good out of something so bad.

[WestHoustonDem]

7. Amy's post made the Houston Chronicle opinion page!

http://www.chron.com/news/opinion/

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

[TexasLawyer]

8. k'd and r'd

[PA Democrat]

11. Just how do you quantify the complete cost of war?

It's about so much more than dollars or even casualty counts. How do you count the broken lives, the broken hearts?

Thank you for sharing your stories.

[LWolf]

12. .

:cry: :kick: