Good News!

I have great news. My son’s best friend, who just so happens to be like a second son to me, just got back safe and sound from Iraq. He and I have exchanged emails and I haven’t heard from him in about a week nor has his mother. She and I were both frantic but last night, my son calls and says someone wants to speak to you and I say okay and the someone says hey got any gravy and I say oh my god and I started to cry and immediately called his mom who says the little stink surprised her too. The only ones in on the surprise of his coming home were his wife and my son.

When he enlisted, my son tried to enlist too. I tried to talk them both out of it but they were both determined to join and do the army thing. My son, thank god, didn’t pass the physical. For the first time since my baby injured his knees, yes knees, playing basketball, I was thankful.

My son is 6’4” and when he was going through puberty his long bones grew faster than his joints causing his joints, especially his knees, to loose their ability to support him. Unfortunately, we didn’t know this until he fell during a ball game and both knees blew along with the anterior and posterior ligaments and tendons. They repaired them and he can walk but he has to be very careful. The stupid recruiter kept trying to get him to join and they would fix his papers or go to an orthopedic that they knew and he would say his knees were okay. I hit the roof and started calling every political person I knew. The recruiter backed off and my son stayed out of the army.

That was then and this is now. My second son is home and is safe and he is getting out of the army and says that things are not good for the troops and he is so glad to be home. He also says that he wishes he had not joined. This was his second time to go over there. He said some of the guys in his troop couldn’t wait to get over there and be a fighting machine but there were many, like him, who just wanted to stay alive and come back home.