INTERVIEW WITH ANNE HALEY
Anne Haley's son, Jay, is a captain with a small unit attached to the 1st Infantry Division. He'll be 28 in a couple of weeks.
Anne: Jay was discharged in October after 5 years of active duty (the extra half-year was due to the start of the Invasion of Iraq. His unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vincenza, Italy, jumped into the Kirkuk area a year ago.
Jay stayed behind as the Rear Detachment Commander, a job that ensures family and social services and notifies families if a soldier is injured or killed. It's a stressful job but he loves it.
Jay graduated from West Point. Its surprised me when he chose to attend West Point but after he� attended for six or seven months he convinced me it was a good choice. He wanted a school with a long tradition and he got that. It� an awesome education if you can stand it. There� a lot of military training that goes along with the education but he did summer internships with, for example, Bell Atlantic; he did a summer program with Airborne school, leadership programs, even a Brigade Commander program. And classes were small, the most students in any class was fifteen and once or twice he even had only one other student and the instructor.
After a student graduates he has a five-year commitment to the military but its assumed that graduates will make a military career. Jay wanted to learn Italian and to work for the National Security Agency. When he decided to leave the military, the Army wasn't happy to discharge himespecially as Jay kept after this Commander to honor the discharge.
After his discharge, he started graduate school in Padova (Padua), Italy, working toward his dream of working for the
NSA.
On November 1, 2003, he joined a reserve unit while in school, mostly for contact with other Americans.
On January 2, 2003, he received a letter transferring him to a reserve unit in Germany which was being activated and attached to the 1st Infantry Division.
They�e been in Tikrit for almost a month now and he is getting to know those he has to rely on. He and I talk a fair amount and I know he� not in as great a danger as some of the other troops as he� in a trailer most of the day listening to radio. But he was surprised at the lack of readiness of some troops. For example, when they were driving from Kuwait to Tikrit, some of the troops saw the Ranger patch on his shoulder and told him they were glad to have him along. They felt safer with him there. Jay said some troops are so poorly prepared that they barely know which way to point their guns! Certainly they don� have the training they need for the kind of jobs they�e asked to do, a combination off diplomacy and police action. Most are just kids, eighteen or nineteen years old, they have very little life experience in general and none whatsoever for advanced diplomacy of the sort required in a foreign land. They�e woefully unprepared.
I was so angry that our government could do to my son what they� been doing to so many other mothers' sons! Hadn� my son �one his Iraqi duty" by supporting the 173rd and going through awful things as Rear Detachment Commander?
But, beyond my personal anger, it is very short-sighted of this government to treat him this way as they badly need translators for intelligence. Jay is working on a mathematics degree as well as studying Arabic -- his 4th language.
My anger led me to Military Families Speak
Out, which has saved my sanity and taught me to channel my anger towards greater goals. I� an introvert and very shy yet I feel so strongly about the war and occupation that I�e overcome my reticence. I
I believe the best way to bring our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers home is through the democratic process.
Here are some questions I� like Americans to think about:
* How would you feel if a powerful nation invaded your country, turned your life, your community, your cities, and your fellow citizens upside down, destroyed your economy, your job, your kid� schools, your family life?
* How would you feel if Iraqi leaders took over the White House?
* Wouldn� you react in the same way that some Iraqis are reacting to the occupation of their country?
Another thing I� like to share is that I was in Florence, Italy, last year when I saw a poster inviting people to participate in an anti-war rally in Rome. My friend and I went to Rome and the rally was wonderful.
Italians have a way of honoring their dead that we in American could learn from. When nine Italians were killed in Iraq last year, Italians set up those nine coffins, draped with Italian flags, and the community honored those dead publicly and with honor. It was a profound honoring.