This past weekend I drove my son to Roswell, New Mexico. He is going to military prep school there, and had to be back from his Thanksgiving break on Sunday.
It's a pretty straight shot from here to there. Take I-25 to Las Vegas (NM), then turn south. The trip was part comfortable silence, part laughing and joking, part earnest discussion on everything from military life to capitalism to his future, in the Air Force Academy next year and beyond.
Dan's goal is to be a fighter pilot. He has survived the winnowing out process thus far, but I had to ask him what he would do if he didn't qualify for fighter pilot school. What if he was assigned to fly cargo planes?
"I'd turn it down. I would probably be a jumper instead." He went on to explain that the Air Force had a team of jumpers called the Crows. Little known, they help with rescuing pilots and also jump into hostile territory to pinpoint targets for air strikes.
Holy Moly! I was glad he was driving at that moment. I probably would have gone straight into the ditch. All this time I had been comforting myself that if he did see action, it would most likely be from the relative safety of an airplane. Little did I know he was also considering the most dangerous job the Air Force had as an alternative.
On the way home I had plenty of time to think. The roads down there are big and wide, and for the most part empty, not unlike the land itself. It is a great place to click on the cruise control, relax, and let the miles go by. Outside of Raton I watched the full moon rise above the buttes and juniper and prairie.
How well can we ever really know our own children? I feel Dan and I have a good relationship. We IM each other almost daily. Yet he is a part of something completely foreign to me.
I have met a few of his buddies at NMMI. They are great young men and women. Motivated and smart, they come from all branches of the military. Unfailingly polite, they have forced me to re-evaluate my thoughts about those who serve our country. I am proud he is part of such a great group.
We can't hold our children back. We can't tell them our biggest fear is that we will lose them; that we wish they would choose something a little safer just for us.
Instead we must hold the door open as they go out into the world. We must stay content with our role as they look to us less and less.
Instead I must question our commander in chief. Question how and why he puts our young men and women in harm's way. Question myself about what I feel our country's role in the world should be. Question a society that goes blithely about its' way as young men and women fight their fight for them.
It takes about 8 hours to get to Roswell from here, if you click on the cruise control and relax. But once you get out of your truck and step past the guardhouse to your son's barracks, once you give him that last hug, once you see his smile when he is reunited with his buddies, once you get back in your truck and head back north you begin to realize something.
This journey of being a parent hasn't stopped yet.