Flashbacks, wars and scariness

Tonight, after I put Zoe to bed, I came downstairs and saw President Obama's face filling my (rather large) TV screen as he stood in front of our nation to defend his actions in authorizing bombings last week in Libya. I sat and listened, interested in what he had to say, and I suddenly flashed back a ways.

Suddenly it was the first President Bush filling the (rather small) TV screen in my parents' living room. I was eleven years old and it was 1990, and our President (the first elected during a time I clearly remember) defended his actions in declaring war in Iraq and Kuwait.

I'd grown up during a comparatively peaceful time, at least inasmuch as I was able to follow at such a young age. I remember hearing about problems in South America, and Oliver North held significance to me, but this was different. This was WAR our President was talking about, and this was utterly terrifying to me.

WAR was World War II, when Hitler killed my ancestors and we dropped atomic bombs on Japan. WAR was Vietnam (police-action, my ass!), when my uncles lived in jungles and boys not much older than my big brother were killed en masse. WAR was scary and important and big.

I cried my eyes out that night in bed, feeling like my world had just collapsed around me.

The next day, determined to do my part, I hung yellow ribbons on the trees in our back yard. (Eat your heart out, Rosie the Riveter, I thought as I glued and stapled.) When my teacher organized a pen pal program with some soldiers in the Persian Gulf (how different that sounds today!), I signed right up, and was delighted when a paratrooper in the 81st Airborne Division wrote me back. His name was Sergeant Jim and he was from New Jersey, just like me. I still have all his letters saved in a binder that sits, gathering dust, in my parents' attic. I sent him cookies. I wanted to meet him face-to-face when he returned home, but one day, he stopped responding to my letters.

My mom tried to come up with an explanation, but nothing really satisfied me, and I was sad. Today I'm wondering...what the hell really happened to Sergeant Jim? I think I'll pull out those letters next weekend and see what some research can dig up. I hope I don't find out anything I'd rather not know.

Anyway, that was my first experience with war, and I'm not sure why President Obama's speech tonight made me think of it. But I can tell you...it's different, by now.

By now, I've had friends killed brutally in terrorist attacks. I've seen other friends and relatives sent away to hostile countries for year-long stints in the desert. I've watched helplessly as a different President Bush declared different wars on different countries, and I've learned what it's like to disagree so strongly with the leader your peers elected that you'd almost consider leaving your home country.

I guess what sent me back in time was this: Even though I still hate war, and even though I'm also weirdly desensitized to it, what President Obama said tonight made SENSE to me, just like what the first President Bush said in 1990. Of COURSE we had to protect innocent civilians. Of COURSE we have to help.

But still...it's WAR. It's SCARY. I hope we never take these moments lightly.