When my father, Odysseus, and his men sailed off to the Trojan War, they were confident their gods favored a quick victory. Instead, the siege of Troy lasted ten years. After Troy fell, the survivors made their way home to Sparta, Mycenae, Pylos, and elsewhere in the ancient Peloponnese. Neither my father nor any of his troops arrived home with the rest. We waited for years as the news grew worse. Odysseus was dead, we were told,or imprisoned, or, worst yet, he had married another woman and abandoned my mother Penelope, my brother Telemachus, and me.


If he is alive somewhere, his thoughts may wander to Penelope and Telemachus, but he won’t be thinking of me. I am the daughter he doesn’t know exists. Odysseus went off to the Trojan War when his son, Telemachus, was barely old enough to walk. His wife, Penelope, was a teenage bride, and is now a young wife, mother, and queen who has to try to rule Ithaca without him.


I was born seven months after he left. I am a hero’s daughter and a princess of his realm, but I have lived my entire life without a father. I’m nineteen now, and still waiting.


All over the world, and throughout history children grow up as I have. This website will focus on the children of those men and women who have gone off to fight America's wars, and provide information and resources for all who care about military families and want to help.

Monday, December 27, 2010

The Weight of the War


 Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 787,000 Guard members and reservists have been called to active duty, the most since World War II. A half-million have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan – and 200,000 have served multiple tours. Think for a moment. National Guard and Reserves. 
Joining the National Guard in the past has been a different kind of commitment that joining the regular military.  It’s a just-in-case kind of operation, which demands some time each month but allows for a normal life at home otherwise. Reserves are just that--ones that aren’t called upon except in emergencies because they have already served.  Whatever one thinks of the war--why we went and whether we should stay--it is a very serious matter that our country has used, and used, and used a human resource it normally shouldn’t have called on at all.
Why is this a problem? Being in the Guard or reserves isn’t a job.  These are people with other jobs, living wherever they want around our country. Many of these servicemembers are older, with more responsibilities to family. Their families do not have, because normally they would not need, many of the support services that full-time active duty service members on or near military installations take advantage of. 
Outside the military community, few seem to understand how so much of the weight of the war has fallen on the shoulders of such servicemembers.  This is the price a few of us are paying for an all-volunteer military.  Just as we are being told that solving our economic crisis will cut us all deeply and painfully, perhaps it is time to say that if we want to take the fight to the terrorists, we will have to be prepared for similar changed in our way of life and similar nationwide sacrifice for our mutual defense. 
Posted by About AART at 6:36 AM

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