Today my son called from Fort Jackson, South Carolina...my last call before he boards a military flight and goes "boots on ground" in Iraq. I would have liked to have recorded that call because my gut tells me that in future calls his voice will be different, muted in a way that only the dust and blood and guts of a foreign country can affect a young person who has known little grief. But not only his voice will change. His body, too, will be affected, that last bit of baby fat dissolved in the heat, sand, and tears of a country where boy babies are considered wealth and baby girls are hardly considered at all save for their future ability to provide more sons. Will he come back with what the Army calls the "thousand mile stare", his gray-blue eyes aswim with ghosts, some of which may rise from the hot steel barrel of his own gun?

He joined the Navy before 9/11. Since then I've been waiting for this day, not actually anticipating it, but knowing it would come because he often said, "I feel like a dick sitting at my safe desk behind a computer all day." It wasn't enough that he kept the ships' communication lines in perfect order. It wasn't enough for him to keep track of the destroyers and carriers, making sure their computers stayed up and running and their supplies flown in on time. So when the Army made him the offer, he gave the nod and went off for special training to learn how to identify IEDs and potential enemies, and how to take a rifle apart and snap it back together before the enemy can take aim, and how to run for cover with 85 pounds of weight on his back, wearing body armor and a heavy helmet under the desert sun.

My friends tell me I should be proud, and I am. My family tells me it'll all be over soon, and I pray that it will. To serve one's country is a privilege and an honor. But I am a mother with no children to spare. When I gave birth I did not look down at his perfect pink face and say, "I hope someday you'll grow up and go to war." I did not count his fingers and toes and say, "I hope someday these fingers will be fast on a trigger." I did not kiss his smooth cheeks and say, "I hope someday you'll grow up and spill the blood of other mother's sons." I did not say those things then. I do not say those things now.