His wife, Penny,
barely heard the
words of a chaplain
on the phone, words
that weren’t real.
How could he whisper
news that should be
delivered at their door,
face to face?

They didn’t have to
wait. When two uniforms
approached Donald’s front
window, a knock shook
the door, slow-motion,
pounding louder
than his heartbeat.
The officer’s words
slurred into silence.

“A vehicle-borne
improvised explosive
detonated near his
position during combat
operations,”¹ the DOD
reported. Anthony Yost,
of Millington, Michigan,
had been killed
in a suicide bombing
while working with
the Iraqi army.

Cut and dry,
39 and out. 20 years
in the army, 6 months
in Iraq, due to come
home after Christmas,
his wife waiting

near Fort Bragg
with their two year old
baby, Anthony James.

Donald and Penny
sat on their couch,
preparing for Thanksgiving,
thanking God for the gift
of their son. “He was
almost due,” Penny told
the Free Press reporter,
“to get out.”
Her voice cracked,
“and there you go.
We have faith here that
God plucked him out.”²

Anthony’s father had been
patient for his son’s return.

They would finally hunt
in woods in the Michigan
thumb, man with man,
father with son.
How could he not smile
when imagining
his son’s red Harley?
How could he not be
proud of a son
who spoke five languages,
a weapons expert
as well? Now,
a war hero prepped
for Arlington burial.

His mother sighed,
“I try to find the answers
for everything,

and I just can’t
find it.” In the darkness
of a November night
in a small town
east of Flint,
a soldier’s father
and mother stare
out their front window,
searching for someone
who’ll never again
knock on their door.

His son, Adel Abed,
skinny as a rake,
sometimes wouldn’t talk
for days. He’d just wander
down the streets of Baghdad,
alone, “like a child,”
his mother said of their son,
mentally ill since childhood.
After a day wandering
on the road, Adel would only
let his mother touch him.
She would take him
to the bathroom and
wash him herself.

When Adel left
one morning and didn’t
return, his father, Abed,

stayed up all night
with his wife who
pictured him dead,
the “blood coming
from his face.”³
A neighbor told them
he’d seen Adel
the day before
slowly walking between
US patrols in Humvees
standing on both sides
of the road. When they saw
an Iraqi coming at them,
they fired shots
over his head
and he panicked,
running fast. So they
shot him, the bullets’

shrieks piercing
the hot air. Adel fell
forward to the ground.
Four soldiers took him away.

His father went to police
who sent him to the hospital
that sent him to the morgue.
He found his son there.
He’d been shot
from behind, “right
through the kidneys.”
American soldiers left
a “claims card” with incident
details and methods
of compensation.

While the trial of
Saddam Hussein goes on,

thirty-eight Iraqis die
in violence daily,
30,000 reported dead
since the invasion of Iraq.
Adel’s father, 73-year-old
Abed Hammed Abbas,
sits at home every day
with his wife,
wondering why
they didn’t lock up
their son, chain him
to their home where
it’s somewhat safe
some of the time.
In this war of Iraqi
Freedom, Abed hopes
his son is free now,
free from the blood

of war, free from
his own sickness,
free to bask
in the afterlife
of no terror
and no pain.

Today is Thanksgiving,
2005. David feels
more blessed
than ever. His son,
Levi, is alive.
On his second day in Iraq,
a rocket propelled grenade
hit Levi’s room,
while he was downstairs
on the computer. His friends
told him, “Levi,
that was your room.”

A bullet on October 3rd
from an Iraqi soldier
pierced his helmet,
then his skull.
Levi remembered the slow,

endless falling, “what seemed
like ten minutes.”⁴
He thought about a kid
shot the same way
two weeks ago
who died. He wondered
if he lived,
would he be normal,
his guys okay?

A bullet had entered
his head a few inches
behind the ear,
near his spine,
before exiting
four inches to the right.
Levi’s eyes have
permanent damage,

he suffers from
headaches, but
he is thankful still.

David says his son
earned the nickname,
“Miracle Child
of Animal Company.”
He knows the risks
of war, holds still
when he hears
another soldier
died in Iraq, but
believes with all
his heart that “God’s
backing him up.”

Levi waits
for more action,

hoping his luck
won’t run out. He can’t
afford “second thoughts;”
his guys’ lives are on
the line. His father
dreams his “miracle child”
will plow Iraqi streets
in his Humvee,
blasting bullets,
saving one US soldier
then another from the terror,
the unholy terror
of death.

The waiting is what hurts.
A mom and dad pray
for the phone call
that lets them be
with their son,
Spencer, burned over
seventy percent of his body.
His Humvee was hit
by an “improvised
explosive device”
near Al-Habbaniyah, Iraq.
His father, Don,
matter-of-factly says
it flipped over, burst
into flames, one boy dead,
four critical, including
the team leader,
his son.

A veteran of the
First Gulf War, a sergeant in
the Michigan National Guard,
Spencer battles for his life
in Germany, specialists from
San Antonio flown in
to stem his infection
and heal the other wounded.
“The biggest part of the burn
is his face,” his father admits.
“The odds are not in his favor.”⁵

Don relives the day his
son, single, volunteered
for Iraq duty to keep
married soldiers from leaving
their wives and children.
He went up in June,

due to leave on Thanksgiving.
Father and son emailed
often on Yahoo Messenger,
till the day before the blast.

Spencer’s father asks
Americans to support troops
with packages and letters.
He is thankful on this
Thanksgiving so many
offer prayers for his son
in church prayer chains
across the state of Michigan,
across the nation.

This faithful father
knows seven US soldiers
are wounded to every one

killed. He hopes his son
stays one of the seven,
comes home where father
can soothe his son’s
charred skin, bring him
water and something
to eat. He prays to God
to give him a chance,
just one more chance,
to take care of his son,
just please take
care of his son.

I cannot sleep.
I can’t keep off the
Internet where every
suicide bombing’s one
click away. I read
of a boy who lost
both legs and one arm,
thankful to be alive,
to have spared another
soldier married with a
child on the way.
His father who’s raised him
as a stepson since eight,
says, “Let’s face it,
all he’s got
is his right hand.”⁶

I have to stay up
for my son, home

from college, still not
home at 1:30, out with
his girlfriend since
high school. How can I
not be thankful
there’s no draft, that boys,
not him, are sent
to take bullets and
bombs? And why do I
still imagine fathers
scrolling online for
the latest fatalities
on icasualties.org⁷,
each bombing a dagger
in the soul, each news
release, every death
by friendly or unfriendly
fire from Iraqis trained
to fight with us or those

who target soldiers,
mothers, children,
Arab or American,
doesn’t matter who.

How can I forget a
twenty-year vet,
three months from retirement,
who never dodged duty,
volunteered in Bosnia
and Desert Storm?
His fiancé admits he wished
we left Iraq long ago
before a chaplain, two officers
approached her home,
before she screamed to get off
her property. She didn’t want
to hear of a tank “accident,”
wanted to know nothing

about the killing of her
future husband.⁸

I can hardly keep
my eyes open,
it’s 2:05, his cell phone
repeats the same message
until I give up and lie
on the couch, waiting
for my son as I stare
at the carpet, praying
for bombs to detonate
far away from kids doing
just what they’re told,
what they’re sent to do,
protect us.

The sirens burst
in my brain, going off

like fireworks on the Fourth,
like bombs. I jump off
the couch and race
down the street, hoping
like hell it’s not him,
not the red Sable we bought
him at sixteen, not a drunk,
his large fender slamming
into him. When I arrive
at flashing lights, I think of
Crash, the movie scene
of a woman pulled
from underneath her car
before it explodes. I think of
nothing when I see a Wharton
sweatshirt dangling
from his body, an officer
explaining how his face
charred in the fire, his left arm

gone. All I can do is yell,
“This is not Iraq,
it’s Farmington Hills!”
He can only answer
in the blinding darkness
how the Sable was hit
by an improvised explosive.
“And there you go,” he pleads.
“I try to find the answers
for everything, and I just
can’t find it.”

The front door rips
open, lights across
the street flash with
my heart that almost stopped
seconds ago. I can only
thank the earth he’s home,
watch him run the stairs

to his room and say nothing.
I must stop thinking
of fathers with soldier-sons.
Like so many Americans,
I want to forget, like
24-hour news channels
hardly mentioning the names
anymore, that simply
give the U.S. death scores,
2000, 2100, now 2107.

So how do you stop it?
Just ask my dad
what it’s like to lose
the son he held
as my mother lay exhausted
a few weeks after birth,
the boy who caught his curveball
before riding his new bike,

scared of falling, of crashing
against the tree.
Just ask my dad
whose son, thirteen,
was thrown against the dash
a half-mile from home
after a Tigers baseball
game as a car sped
through a flashing red light
into Kenny’s side.
Ask him what it’s like
to wonder even now,
twenty-three years later,
what could he have done
to stop it, what would
his son, my brother
be now if he were
still here, alive?

You just want to wake
men who sleep
without thinking
because it’s not their child,
not their blood. You want
to shake bastards who
blow up boys because
they’re worthless to them.
You just want to stop
and breathe. In this night
after Thanksgiving, I need
to take a deep, deep
breath, stop thinking,
go back to sleep.
I want to be thankful
my son is home,
hopeful God has a reason
to pluck children
from their fathers,

their mothers,
pray everything
will be okay.
God help us
make everything okay.