An Explanation

In the 1999-2000 school year, I had an ACE student named Dan. He was a tall kid, typical ACE type, not super organized or motivated. He had a penchant for falling asleep in class. Remember, I teach these kids because I love them, not because I get “stuck” with them. For all his faults, this boy had a big heart and really did want to please; he just got…well…distracted. He graduated in the spring of 2001 and entered the Marines. At the time, I thought that it was ideal. He would learn discipline, teamwork, responsibility. And he did learn all of those things. He said he fell asleep in class in boot camp once. Only once. Never again.

The next time I saw him, much had changed, obviously. The Twin Towers and Pentagon had been attacked, and Dan was coming back home on leave from Afghanistan, where he had been combing caves, looking for the man who had engineered the attack, or at least some of that man’s lackeys. It didn’t matter how many caves he went into, Dan told my ACE teaching partner and me, he was scared shitless every time. But he was proud to serve his country, and he wanted the sonofabitch who had killed all those people.

It so happened that he had dropped in on an assembly day, and our principal arranged to have him stand in front of the student body: one of the few, the proud, a Marine, and we all applauded him.

In March, Dan was among the first Marines to sweep into Baghdad. He wrote me a letter. It was hard, much harder than he could have imagined. He had to kill people. If you don’t remember, please take a look above at the year I taught him. He was a sophomore when Eric and Dylan did what they did. He was in the same class as the debater I lost. Dan was acutely aware of what he had done to the family and friends of the men he’d killed. He knew that those people would suffer; he knew what they would suffer. He also knew that if he had not killed the enemy fighters that he had, they would have killed him, and he was far from ready to die. He was scared all of the time and haunted by what he had to do. All of this was in a letter addressed to “Mrs. Reed.” He hadn’t been out of high school long enough to bring himself to call me by my first name, even though I’d given him permission to.

I wrote him a long letter back, but through whatever snafus go on in war, the letter was returned to me, unopened, six weeks later. I thought, “Oh my God, the boy opens up his heart like this, and he must think I’ve ignored him.”

I know what you’re thinking, and no, Dan wasn’t killed in either of the two tours he served in Iraq. I don’t know how many people he was forced to kill. When he came home after his final tour, he was on the brink of getting out. He just had to return to Texas (I think it was) for a few weeks to be processed out. He was torn between going AWOL those last few, safe weeks because he couldn’t bear the thought of being trapped in the military again and wanting to sign on for another stint because he didn’t know what else to do. The shootings at school had already scarred him. This only increased the damage.

He told my partner and me how he felt, and we told him that he needed to finish up—no sense getting through three tours of hazardous duty only to be court martialed, but that we really didn’t think he should go back. He didn’t. The last time I saw him was at the video store. He doesn’t look like a goofy kid anymore, that’s for sure. He looks much older than his 24 years.

I know that war does this, any war, justified or not. If we had only invaded Afghanistan or if we’d found WMD’s in Iraq, I think it would still hurt me to look at what happens to the young men and women who must serve. But when I think of him suffering this needlessly… And Dan is fortunate in many ways. He’s alive. He’s physically whole.

Anyway, I no longer hold my breath when I hear of Marines dying, hoping that the news doesn’t mention any of them being from Littleton, Colorado and then feeling consumed with guilt for basically wishing the dreaded news on someone else. But when I hear about young men and women, people who were in high school classrooms only a heartbeat ago, I can’t help but think of Dan. Last year, Columbine lost an alumnus in Iraq, a kid who’d survived Eric and Dylan’s attack. I didn’t know him, but it doesn’t really matter. All I know is that his death was as senseless as the deaths of those killed April 20th. I know that Dan was doing his duty in Afghanistan, but he was screwed in Iraq.

So if I do seem strident, emotional, if I seem to be taking it personally, there are reasons for that.

tags: bush  iraq  war  marines  education