When They Grow Up

One of mine came to see me yesterday in his uniform.  He had completed basic training the summer before his senior year, and so he was already all about the Army when I had him.  He always had a curiously old-fashioned nature to him.  I would almost have called it chivalry if such things existed any more or can. He's bright, logical, and driven.  Yesterday, he told me he's done with all his training and that he's volunteered for deployment as soon as his orders can be cut.

That, of course, means Afghanistan.  He's got the patch on his sleeve already.  He's military police, and so they can put him with any unit, anywhere.  That, of course, means that this bright, chivalrous, logical, driven young man who wants to serve his country is now going to be in with all the rabid dogs and that he might come home in a flag-draped box.  Praying that he doesn't, whatever he is now will be substantially altered after three years in a place where hell has very much been dragged up and given free rein on earth. 

I know they're not really mine when they sit in those desks.  I know they will grow up and go on to destinies that will sometimes involve danger.  Some of them will end up draped in glory, some in chains.  There are hints of those futures in them when they are with me.  Even though I know in my head that they are only on loan to me, it doesn't stop my heart from worrying, from wanting to wrap them all in happiness and keep them safe.  I know it's not realistic or possible, or even, ultimately right since every person needs to experience both the good and the bad of the world to find his own way, but when I think about how very bad some of the bad is....

He was proud and tall in his desert camo, his baton on his hip.  As he left, I told him not to get any holes poked in him.  He laughed and said he would do his best not to, or at least to make sure he poked holes in the other guy first.  And so another one grows up, goes to his place in the broader world, and I worry.....