INTERVIEW WITH JOYE GENTRY
Joye Gentry� son, called �ob�in this interview, is with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment out of Ft. Polk. He� 22 years old.
Joye: I have two sons. Bob is the eldest and he� been living with his dad since he was about fourteen. He was having problems in his senior year of high school, running around with the wrong crowd, and getting into trouble. I think if you hadn� enlisted he may even be dead by now with the kinds of trouble he was getting into. Then one Saturday night he wrecked his daddy� car and two boys almost died. On Monday he enlisted.
Basic training made a big change in him.
He� in east Baghdad and their camp has been attacked. I�e been lucky in that I�e been able to chat online with him almost every day. There were a few times I haven� heard from him; once he was away on a 21-day secret mission. And on his birthday during I was so angry I couldn� wish him happy birthday as I�e always done so that was very hard. That was around the time that Bush said, �ring �m on.�That made me so angryI can� even explain how angry I was when I heard that.
I�e had a lot of health problems �malignancies and surgeries -- in the last years and that has been hard on Bob. He felt so far away and so powerless when I was sick and, of course, he can� come home and visit unless I died. I decided to not tell him the extent of some of my health problems because there was nothing he could do but worry. He needs his mind on what he has to do to stay alive.
It was a great disappointment to him to learn that what was supposed to be six months in Iraq turned into one year. He was told in August, just before he was due to come home, that he� remain over there for another six months.
I don� know how it� going to be when I see him again. I don't know what to expect but I cant wait for him to get home. I expect he�l suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to some degree but I have no idea how much. I� afraid that he�l never be the same again. Bob has always been quiet, he doesn� talk much just like his daddy, so I expect he�l not talk much if something is really bothering him. One local mother told me when her son got back home he climbed into bed with her and slept deeply for the first time since he� been back.
Then I worry about the physical problems he may get in the future. We don� even know what the soldiers have been exposed to over there. That� a problem that may only show up years from now.
I believe we should get out of Iraq. I honestly believed Bush on Weapons of Mass Destruction. But as time has gone by we�e seen nothing at all. I� convinced now that we have no reason at all to be over there. Our children joined to defend our country, to hunt for Osama bin Laden after 9/11 but we�e in Iraq. For what? There are people just as bad as Saddam Hussein in the US.
The way the military has been behaving towards these soldiers its no wonder there� a shortage of soldiers. The kids see what is going on and they don� want any part of it. My younger son is not interested in enlisting at all.
My family has four people in the military: my great nephew, and his daddy is a Command Sergeant Major, a nephew on my husband� side from Texas, and Bob.
Bob likes most of the guys although he says some of them don� seem to be as alert as they should be.
At this point Bob seems unwilling to re-enlist although my nephew, who is the Command Sergeant Major, is urging him to do so. But Bob says some enlisted men seem to get picked on a lot or they get in trouble for stupid, stupid things. If Bob doesn� re-enlist he�l probably move to a bigger town to find work.
I live about seventeen miles out of our town but I drive into town to shop. Recently I asked the manager of Walmart if she could give us some space on the bulletin board to honor the soldiers and their families. I thought we could put up pictures of our kids, or mention something about them. The manager told me that they don� have the time or the space for that. She added that sometimes on Veterans�Day that�l do something but I noticed there� not been anything about that either. It� very sad.
The military recruiters go into the schools and tell the kids anything they think the kids want to hear. They tell so many lies. A recruiter told Bob that he� train for a couple of months and he� be in college by the fall. Instead Bob was in Iraq by the fall.
They were told in the fall of 2002 that they would be going to Iraq or Kuwait in Spring 2003 for 6 months, even if war was not declared. His squadron was one of the last to go...they actually left the end of April 2003.