Posted on 07/30/2002 6:00:39 AM PDT by KMC1
"Wives Killed!" screamed the headlines of the Monday edition of the New York Times. Reuters, Associated Press, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times and others all relayed the story as well. In the sleepy little community near and around Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in recent weeks, four military men have taken the lives of their wives. Three of the men, as it turns out, were in the Army Special Forces unit who had been fighting in Afghanistan in recent months. Local police, army commanders and military officials say the killings had nothing at all to do with the men's assignments.
When the Times' reporter Fox Butterfield interviewed a Special Forces master sergeant about the killings, he simply replied, "[Special Forces] don't like to talk about that emotional stuff. We are Type A people, who just blow things like that off, like yesterday's news. You know the usual problems of family separation during war were eased more during this war because of the use of satellite phones."
Ms. Deborah Tucker of the Defense Department's task force on Domestic Violence said the real explanation was a likely history of troubled marriages and husbands who crave control and may have feared infidelity while deployed in Afghanistan...it is the on the job stress of separation and the fear of an unfaithful spouse working together.
My question is why?
Cut to Saturday evening. I am watching the "Best of Mike Meyers on Saturday Night Live" when the news comes scrolling across the bottom of my screen. All nine of the miners caught in the Quecreek Mine had been rescued. A teary eyed Harry B. Mayhugh tells reporters, "I didn't think I was ever going to see my wife and kids again!"
Harry's comments were reflective of several of the men who had been held captive by 60 million gallons of water. They had all vowed to live or die as a group. They tied themselves together in the event that if they died, all of their bodies would be found. They all had written notes to their wives and kids and placed them in a bucket that would, hopefully, stay dry. They took turns encouraging each other, when one of them became downcast. They sat back to back, side to side, trying to generate as much body heat as possible. They stood in three feet of water that gave them all mild hypothermia.
Most notable in my mind was the single line bio written about the miner named John Phillipi. It was written in one of the Pittsburgh papers, "He has a young son who idolizes everything his father does and a wife--who he adores--who works at the post office."
My question is why?
I'm not one to draw a moral judgment between which job is harder, being a soldier in the special forces or being a coal miner. I would suspect though that both lines of work have a tendency to be stressful, hard and, at times, filled with a lack of fulfillment. I would also imagine there have been days when the families of both "types" have wondered if they would be back that night.
Regardless though of which occupation is filled with more stress, the job number one for both should be that their family, who are waiting at home, sometimes breathlessly, for their arrival. Men, being manly has nothing to do with "killing the bad guys," though they may be called to do that. Men, being manly has nothing to do with how many tons of rock they can move in one day, though strength is mandated for this. Manly men are the ones who are training their sons to be faithful to their wives and to love their kids the way their dad loves them.
Do we lay awake at night wondering why it is John Phillipi's boy idolizes every move his father makes. Does it even penetrate our frame of reference that there is a whole generation of boys and girls waiting for their men to be "real Dads"?
Look at our political system, look at the scandals of corporate America, look at how many Dads are so locked into what is going on at the office, that they don't even realize when they are at home. Does that haunt you? Should it?
Today there is sadness in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Today there is renewed joy and hope in Somerset, Pennsylvania. But what about the home that you return to tonight. Will we choose to be "the kind of men that every man should be"?
Contact Kevin: kmc@wyll.com
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