WAR and PEACE

I come from a warrior-clan. Still.
On the Irish side, there have been warriors going back to the real BRAVEHEART. (Scots that put the Scots in my Scots-Irish.) Even the older relatives I grew up around had fought in every war that I can remember--and the two big ones,before I was born. Pictures abound of all the uncles and grandfathers in uniform among other scrubbed faced and shining guys about to enter Hell for the first time.

A few of the relatives were heroes, though they never spoke about it.
Family history passed the stories on: Uncle Charlie with his multiple purple-hearts during WII; one for jumping in a roaring river to save a man, even though Uncle Charlie had never learned to swim...(Made me take swimming lessons at the city pool, very,very seriously.) Or the two grandfathers who were so upset with Hitler for pulling them back into another World War after they'd just gotten back, barely, from the first, that, as "old men", they up and enlisted, again. (Trouble was, they didn't see a single German. They were sent to the Pacific.) Both were gassed, in WWI, in the trenches. The Norwegian grandfather almost died. WWII was personal.

I don't know much about these men.
They were long gone by the time I made my entrance. I don't know if my parents (both youngest in their families) really knew them, either. Both drank. But everyone in my family, among the men, was expected to drink--and not a few of the women. There were military photos in ornate frames. Black and white or sepia-tinted. In my mind, it was hard to imagine them as grandfathers; they were in their twenties and thirties in these iconic pictures. My Norwegian grandfather was always in a sailor's suit--mostly the navy blue trimmed with white kind--his sailor cap jauntily off to one side. (When we'd rummage through the old sea-chests in the attic--where they remain, still--we'd pull out his scratchy woolen sailors' shirt and hat. He was very skinny. Even his head. Another reason I couldn't visualize him as a robust Santa Claus type grandfather.)

His son, my godfather, carried one of the atomic bombs, though not the ones that rained on Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Years later, he died of cancer. (When Bill Clinton's expose of the atomic and nuclear testing experiments were published, there was a lot of evidence for my uncle's case. His daughter is a corporate lawyer, but, his family never received any benefits.)

On the Norwegian side of the family, there was also much wrath against Nazis because they completely wiped out the village most of the relatives lived in, in Norway. The town had been hiding Jews and aiding the resistance. Nazis machine-gunned everyone and raized the village to the snow. (So my sailor grandfather had a personal grudge on the blood-feud side.)


Other cousins have gone to Korea--never coming back the same.
Still handsome in their uniforms and return-home smiles, they slowly grew silent. Then, there was Vietnam, the Falklands (which no one took seriously), The Gulf Wars, and Iraq.

My brothers missed the wars by inches and only a few years.
One brother is an engineer now working for FEMA, still trying to help people in horrific conditions. The other is a cop, in our hometown. (I don't know, really, whose job is more dangerous. Drugs make even traffic tickets sort of like combat duty, these days.) The cop brother enlisted, like so many of his male relatives, and did special training in some branch--I think it was Air Force--like my godfather. But for Kev, he squeaked by all the new Big Wars. (So, he's always looking for his chance, I guess.) And even though the engineer brother was more like me and more of a pacifist, he, too, searches out "comrades". (I'm hoping FEMA fulfills those fantasies for him.) Both brothers know how to drink like the warrior-males in our family have always drunk: to bond with others and be emotional; to hide their confusion and pain.

Meanwhile, the women cluck and have conversations behind the scenes and carry and nurture the children and hide their own battle scars. (These run as deep, but must be borne.) There are no drinking clubs or fist-fights at family events for the women. Only gossip behind the lines. Sometimes just as hard-hitting and dangerous.

Now, the newest generation rises. The nieces are tall and thin and lovely and smart. Like the step-nephew, for now, they are cocooned in a world that connects with them electronically. They still take on causes--but those switch from environmental to American Idol to history-making politicians of all kinds. They have aunties who are in the world and fighting for others, up front and personal. Whether in ER big city hospitals or dealing with sexual harrassment issues in the corporate workspace--my sisters also contain fierce fighting bloodlines. What this new generation will choose or what will choose them is still up for grabs. They have different conditions to take on; alternate battlegrounds. Still, I know they will fight.

I come from a clan of warriors. Still.