Not since he was a baby, when I would walk with him at night
to lull him to sleep, did I hug my only son as long as I hugged
him that Saturday night. It was March 8, 2003, and we were in
the parking lot of a hotel, across the street from a fence that
separated my civilian world from his military world, the world
of Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia.
Don't try to be a hero, I think I said. That would have been
consistent with my philosophy, ever since I had served in combat
in Vietnam in 1968: No need to win any bronze stars, no need for
any purple hearts. Every soldier who goes out into the madness
of war and does his job is a hero. And then I said I love you,
and I'm proud of you. He said he loved me, and then he got into
his car and drove off to war.
My wife and daughter had said their goodbyes just moments before;
they had hugged him just as long and as hard as I had before they
retreated to our hotel suite to fight back tears and fears. I
joined them in the living room. We were silent. There was nothing
to say. We all agreed: the war in Afghanistan made sense; the
war in Iraq did not. Yet Iraq was where the fourth member of our
family was headed.
I went into one of the two bedrooms and closed the door and
began to scribble page after page about why the war in Iraq was
a reckless, no-end-in-sight war. My wife, Pat, went into the other
bedroom and closed the door. She needed privacy to say her novena:
27 days of petition and 27 days of thanksgiving. I don't know
what day she was on, but she said it was working.
Our daughter, Shaine, who had seen a long relationship with
a young man she had known since college days come to an end in
summer 2001, had met a good young man a year later. They had talked
on the phone several times during our stay in Savannah. The novena
seemed to have sparked and sustained love. But now it would face
a much tougher challenge, a challenge well beyond the control
of any of us, the challenge of war.
Collin joined the Army in 1998, trained at Fort Knox in Kentucky
and shipped out to Germany in early 1999. My advice to him before
he joined the Army was "don't sign up for the infantry." He didn't.
Instead, he volunteered to be a scout in an infantry unit, which
was an even more dangerous job. In February 2000, unbeknown to
us at the time, he spent three weeks in Kosovo, helping the French
in their sector of that troubled land. The gendarmes needed help
bringing order to the town of Mitrovica, where Albanian Muslims
and Christian Serbs were fighting. Muslim extremists in the Middle
East seemed to have forgotten that the United States intervened
in the war in Kosovo to protect the Albanian Muslims from
the Christian Serbs.
I was up most of the night, listening for the roar of a giant
Air Force plane that would take my son and his company to some
secret location near or maybe in Iraq. Sometime between 2 and
3 a.m., I heard a plane streak overhead.
* * *
I woke around 8 a.m., after about three hours of sleep. It was
4:07 Sunday afternoon, Saddam's time. Baghdad was eight hours
ahead of East Coast time. I figured my son was out over the Atlantic,
probably on his way to Ramstein Air Base, the giant U.S. airbase
in Germany that served as a hub for the movement of military people
and things into and out of the Middle East.
While getting ready for Mass, we watched the Sunday morning
talk shows. Pundits and politicians, not a one of them with a
son or daughter out over the Atlantic heading for the war in Iraq,
talked endlessly and comfortably about the coming war. We felt
aggrieved. Why was it that those who made policy and those who
influenced the public to support the policy didn't have loved
ones affected by the policy?
And the three of us felt isolated. Not only did no one on TV
have a son or daughter heading to Iraq, no one we knew had a loved
one flying off to war. We were an island of three souls, terrified
by the coming war, living in what seemed to us to be an ocean
of indifference to the coming mayhem. Perhaps Sunday morning Mass
might offer some strength, some solace.
Savannah's main Catholic church, the Cathedral of Saint John
the Baptist, is magnificent. The twin towers that sit atop the
church in the city's historic district can be seen for miles around.
Every year, on the second Sunday before Saint Patrick's Day, the
city's substantial Irish population holds its special Celtic cross
Mass at the cathedral. This was the day.
As we neared the church, we saw a sea of kelly green. Hundreds
of men and boys in green blazers, and women and little girls in
bright green, beautifully embroidered dresses were gathering in
front of the cathedral. Groups congregated around large banners:
Sinn Fein Society, Clan Na Erin, the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick,
the Daughters of Ireland. In typical Irish fashion, the sexes
were segregated.
During the Mass, the profoundly patriotic congregation, knowing
America was on the brink of war, sang "God Bless America," filling
the cavernous church. I tried but failed to fight back tears.
I didn't look at my wife and daughter because I didn't want them
to see my tears.
And I didn't want them to sense my fear. Just nine months earlier
this church had been the site of a memorial service for three
Army Rangers who had died in Operation Anaconda, the Pentagon's
name for the hunt for Al Qaeda -- the true perpetrators of September
11th -- in the frigid, towering mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
The Hindu Kush range of mountains had recently been proudly proclaimed
"the top of the world" by Osama bin Laden. Clearly, the work U.S.
forces had been sent to do in Afghanistan in October 2001 was
not yet finished, but Iraq was where the Army's 1st Ranger Battalion
was now being sent.
In March 2002, with only six months left in his enlistment,
our son decided to become an Army Ranger. The motto of this all-male
group is "Rangers Lead the Way." Our only son not only wanted
to be a part of America's response to the savage attacks of September
11th, he wanted to be one of those who led the response.
During Mass, I prayed for the safety of our son and all of our
troops, now stationed in more than 40 countries around the world.
I prayed especially for our troops heading into Iraq, knowing
full well that some of our nation's sons and daughters would die
and many others would be wounded. I prayed that the three of us
would have the strength to accept what came our way. I looked
at my watch: noon in Savannah, 6 p.m. in Germany, 8 p.m. in Baghdad.
Sergeant Collin McMahon was probably now leaving Ramstein Air
Base on his way into the war zone.
We came out of the church feeling comforted, strengthened. Our
strength came from these people, from this church, from this pro-America,
pro-military community. We wanted to stay in Savannah; we wanted
to stay near Hunter Army Airfield; we wanted to stay near the
Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist; we wanted to stay near the
Hibernians and Sons of Saint Patrick and Daughters of Ireland.
But we each had jobs back home, and we knew the best thing for
us was to maintain our routines as much as possible, just keep
life going as normally as possible as we awaited war. The next
day, we flew back to Washington.
* * *In the next few days, U.N. weapons inspectors
ended their search for weapons of mass destruction, packed up
their belongings and left Iraq. By phone and e-mail, my wife and
I kept in close touch with our daughter, who lived in Arlington,
Virginia. Shaine, half of our treasure, confided in my wife that
this young man, Curt, was the one. We were pulled in opposite
directions, one of joy, one of fear.
On Saturday night, March 15, friends of ours in Reston, Virginia,
our home town, had a Saint Patrick's Day party. The six couples,
friends whose children had grown up with our children in Reston's
schools and on its soccer fields, were trying to get us out of
the house and get our minds off the coming war. In the end, we
couldn't bring ourselves to attend. We were violating our maintain-your-routine
rule. But partying and war just didn't mix. And besides, conversations
at these parties inevitably turned to our children's successes
and setbacks. Our friends' children were buying condominiums,
getting engaged, attending graduate school. Our son was headed
to war.
On Saint Patrick's Day evening, President Bush addressed the
nation, the world and in particular, Saddam Hussein: You have
72 hours to give up your weapons of mass destruction and relinquish
control of the Iraqi government. Saddam, of course, did not comply.
Shock and awe began one day early, on the evening of March 19,
2003, because the CIA had a tip that Saddam was in a particular
apartment building in Baghdad. The war had begun.
* * *
I was glad to have a business trip the next day. It would help
to keep me occupied. I took the same flight I had taken on September
11, 2001, a Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore-Washington
Airport to Albany, New York. The flight took us right over New
York City. Shortly after the 9:15 a.m. takeoff on the day of the
barbaric attacks, the pilot informed us we were being rerouted
around the city because of "an accident in New York City."
It seemed odd to me, but I didn't know what to make of it, so
I opened the sport's section of the Washington Post to
see just how far behind the Yankees our beloved Orioles were.
They were way back.
We arrived in Albany about 10:30 a.m. Only when I entered the
terminal did I begin to realize that something terrible had happened.
Scores of people were huddled around TV monitors. I quickly learned
what seemed almost incomprehensible: The "accident in New York
City" was an attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center
with commercial airliners. I spent some time in the chapel of
the Albany airport. I tried to call home, to call my office, to
call an attorney I was to meet in Albany. All the lines were busy.
I waited in the Hertz line, wanting to comfort a woman sobbing
on a nearby bench, but I was afraid to lose my place in line.
I might lose my rental car, which might be my only way back to
my car at the Baltimore-Washington Airport.
I heard one man say excitedly that a plane had gone down near
Pittsburgh. When I got to the head of the line, the Hertz lady
told me the twin towers had collapsed. I knew right then that
our son, who at the time had one year left in his four-year enlistment,
would be involved in our nation's response; I knew America would
never be the same, and neither would our family.
Our daughter, who at the time worked in an office on K Street
in Washington, D.C., just two blocks from the White House, would
later describe a scene of panic and chaos after the third plane
had hit the Pentagon. Rumors were rampant that there might be
planes headed toward the Capitol. The metro was closed. No taxis
were available. People, tears of grief and fear streaming down
their faces, were running down the streets of Washington, across
the bridges over the Potomac into Virginia. Hundreds of discarded
high heels littered the way.
At Centreville High School in suburban Virginia, where my wife
worked as a guidance counselor, some of the students had parents
working in the Pentagon. One boy would learn that his mother,
a civilian working in the wing that had been hit, was killed instantly.
September 11th touched each of us in a different way.
* * *
The days that followed the beginning of the war in Iraq were
the most frightening of all for my family. Our son had been gone
almost two weeks. We didn't know where he was or what he was doing.
As an Army Ranger, he was part of Special Operations. No communications
were permitted.
Yet CNN covered the war 24/7. The distinctive music it used
to begin each broadcast segment terrified me. Still, I wanted
to know everything that was going on, from the progress the Army's
Third Infantry Division was making in its move north from Kuwait
toward Baghdad, to the Marines moving north along the Tigris through
Kut. I listened intently for any mention of Special Operations.
My beloved wife of 33 years was upstairs, saying her novena.
One evening, we saw footage of a big nighttime firefight between
U.S. Special Operations units and Iraqis defending a scud missile
site in the western Iraqi desert. The Iraqis could launch missiles
from this site and hit Israel. I was convinced our son was a part
of this engagement.
On Monday, March 24, the headline in the Washington Post
read: "Clashes at Key River Crossing Bring Heaviest Day of American
Casualties." Sixteen Americans were killed and five captured in
two separate encounters with Iraqi forces in the town of Nasiriya,
about 200 miles south of Baghdad. Iraqi television, the Post
reported, broadcast graphic images from a morgue showing the uniformed
bodies of seven Americans who were members of an Army supply maintenance
company that had taken a wrong turn in the town. Some U.S. soldiers
were missing in action in the bloodiest day of the war. The front
page of that same day's Post reported that Nicole Kidman
had won the Oscar the night before as best actress for her role
in The Hours.
My wife and I continued to watch TV nightly, following the movement
of U.S. units north toward Baghdad. Beginning March 25, the movement
was delayed several days by one of the fiercest sandstorms that
had occurred in Iraq in years. It was about this time that I was
so worried and upset and sleepless that I thought about seeing
a professional counselor. But what would he say? How could he
help me? What counselor had experience helping the father of a
soldier at war? I decided against it.
We were not without therapy. It wasn't professional, but it
was probably more effective. We would come home from work and
find flowers on our doorstep or a card in the mail box: "Can't
stop thinking about you, and praying for Collin's safe return.
Love, Evelyn." Or messages on voice mail: "Pat, it's Ellen. Call
me." Sometimes a friend of Pat's would stop by with a prepared
meal. I loved the spaghetti and meatballs. So it went, but still
not the best therapy of all, a call or e-mail from our son.
On Tuesday evening, April 1, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks,
U.S. Central Command's chief spokesman, announced on TV that Army
Private Jessica Lynch, a member of the supply unit that had been
ambushed on March 23, had been rescued from a hospital in Nasiriya.
The next day, the Washington Post reported that CIA operatives,
Navy Seals and Army Rangers, all members of a special operations
unit, had carried out the rescue.
My wife asked if I thought Collin might have been involved in
the rescue. No way, I said. I'm sure he's in the western Iraqi
dessert, hundreds of miles from Nasiriya.
Days of terror went by. Each of us tried to maintain our routines.
All in all, we did pretty well. On April 9, soldiers from the
Third Infantry Division entered Baghdad and tore down the statue
of Saddam Hussein. I was glad, and proud of the division. Saddam
was a bad man, but I couldn't figure out what he had to do with
September 11th. It had now been a month and a day since we had
seen or heard from our son.
In mid-April, almost a month into the war, the Washington
Post reported that 102 Americans had been killed, seven were
listed as Prisoners of War and eight were classified as Missing
in Action. Apparently, no one had been wounded. The Pentagon reported
that soldiers were wounded only if there was a death in the same
action. So if seven Marines were wounded in an action but there
were no Marine fatalities, the action was not reported to the
American people.
On April 28, I was in a dealership leasing a new car when my
secretary walked into the showroom. When I saw her, my heart dropped.
There was no reason for her to come looking for me, except the
worst. But she yelled out that our son had called my office about
30 minutes before. He was fine, his spirits were high; he was
out of Iraq and headed home. It was one of the most joyous moments
of my life.
The next day, April 29, was my 58th birthday. And what a birthday
present I received! Collin called from Hunter Army Airfield in
Savannah. He was safely home.
And he would be coming to Reston on Friday, May 2. Immediately
we started inviting our friends to a party. We went out Saturday
afternoon to buy the food and drinks, and when we returned there
were yellow ribbons and balloons tied to trees and lampposts everywhere.
The weather on Sunday was near perfect. A gentle breeze ruffled
the banner that stretched the width of our deck, prepared by the
students at Centreville High School: Welcome Home Collin!!! You're
The Best!! It was signed by dozens of students. But the best of
all was Collin's toast to his fiancée, Lana. My wife and
daughter and I loved this girl, whom Collin had met while working
as a waiter in Reston four years earlier. He had bought the ring
just days before, having decided Lana was the one.
Shaine and Curt would get engaged four days later.
During Collin's four-day visit, he informed us that he and his
fellow Army Rangers had participated in the rescue of Private
Lynch. Later, he and other Rangers, in the dead of night in an
abandoned soccer field near the hospital, had the gruesome task
of digging up, with their hands -- they had not brought entrenching
tools -- the bodies of eight American soldiers who had been killed
in the same action in which Lynch had been wounded. In the days
after April 1, the American people would see the videotape of
the rescue of Lynch over and over. They would never see the disinterment
of her eight colleagues.
I don't know how many times I hugged our son during his visit.
But every time I hugged him, I told him how proud I was of him
and all the Army Rangers, and all the men and women serving in
our armed forces. They would continue to go out into the madness
of war and do their jobs. They are all heroes.
Today, Staff Sergeant McMahon is still on active duty, serving
his country where required as a proud Army Ranger. He and his
wife, Lana, like so many other military families, bear the burden
of long separations that are the inevitable result of the continuing
war on terrorism and the government's doctrine of preemptive war.
Tom McMahon is an attorney.
(January 2005)
