A woman that I work with came in looking like she had had a very rough night. She was pale and drawn and almost haggard, which is not her usual look. Her son is in Iraq. She never wanted that. Her family is very much like so many families of the troops in Iraq. They’re a generation away from poverty, working hard to acheive the increasingly elusive American dream. Her son was recruited when he was still in high school and this war was just a twinkle in George Bush’s eye. Maria is a young mother. The only war she’d be likely to remember is the Gulf War. She’s neither uneducated nor naive, but she’d never in her life really seen our government send its children off to kill and die for no real reason.

When her son said he wanted to join up, she might have hesitated, but she didn’t want to stand in his way. They told him they’d send him to college. The said he could go to law school on their dime, maybe become a JAG officer. Once he got out of high school and the Marines came to collect on his pledge, she had long talks with him. She’d have helped if he’d wanted to change his mind, but she didn’t want to stand in the way of something he wanted. They told her they were sending him to college and probably not to Iraq, which was well underway by then.

So now he’s in Iraq, on street patrol. His mother supports him utterly, but she opposes the war. And most of all she lives in fear every day of her life. She doesn’t get a lot of sleep. She’s joined Military Families Speak Out and surfs sites like Operation Truth every chance she gets. It would be so much easier if she could just convince herself that the war is necessary and the cause is noble, but like Cindy Sheehan, she will not accept those ideas for the sake of a bit of comfort.

Today was so bad because her son told her he had killed someone. He was a mess. She was a mess for him. Now there’s more to keep her up at night. She’ll wonder what this will do to him. He’ll get through it for now. There’ll be people in his unit who’ve been through it and they’ll understand what he’s feeling and help him deal with it. For now. In the longterm, it could be a different story. One thing is certain, if he makes it home, he’ll be a different person and he’ll be bringing some demons home with him.

So to Scooter Libby and any future indictees as well as those architects and salemen of this war who may go unscathed, I have a wish for you. I wish nothing more than that you could walk for a few days in Maria’s shoes. I wish upon you the thoughts that keep her up at night and the nightmares that make up her dreams. Maybe then you’d understand what you’ve done.