‘As long as Dad comes back alive...’

[babylonsister]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2116138.ece

‘As long as Dad comes back alive...’
US army children are fraying amid pressures that would crush many adults
Tony Allen-Mills

snip//

It is hard to ask an 11-year-old if he is worried his father might die, but the question has long been preying on the minds of an estimated 155,000 American children with a military parent serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“I’m okay with it,” Twelve answered bravely. But his voice tailed off as he added: “As long as he comes back alive . . .”

They are easily overlooked in the turmoil of America’s troop surge in Iraq, but a generation of military children is growing up amid pressures that would crush many adults.

As US military deployments have lengthened and multiplied in a war with no victory in sight, children are going months without seeing their parents - months that are often spent frantically worrying they may never see that parent again.

“The resilience of some of these kids amazes me,” said Joyce Raezer, head of the National Military Families Association (NMFA), an independent charity that has been arranging special summer camps for children with parents on active duty. “But we’ve begun to see the cracks.”

more...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Bush's legacy--harming a whole new generation n/t

[shadowknows69]

2. I met my first "child" of an Iraq casualty in my cab the other day

Not sure how we got on the subject, and when I say child I mean this was a man in his 20's, but he mentioned his father had been killed there. I was speechless from that point on, what do you say except sorry? Silently I cursed George Bush's soul to hell.