War's Casualties Include the Children of Reservists

[Judi Lynn]

December 27, 2003

THE NATION
War's Casualties Include the Children of Reservists

By Faye Fiore, Times Staff Writer


FARGO, N.D. — There won't be any Christmas on the Schmidtke farm this season. Never mind that the artificial tree has been up and decorated in the living room window for an entire year — through the spring thaw and the lush summer, when the cats toppled it twice.

It's there because Sgt. Dan Schmidtke promised his daughters he would take it down just as soon as he got home from Iraq. That was in January, when he left with the rest of the Army National Guard's 142nd Engineer Combat Battalion. He isn't back yet, and until he is, they aren't about to let go of last Christmas, much less celebrate this one.

"I worry about his safety when I'm at school. I can't sleep when my dad's awake," said Dani Schmidtke, 15, who decided she would rather live with a tree for a year than risk jinxing her father's life.

The separation of war has fallen hard on the children of American soldiers, and perhaps none so much as the families of those in the reserves. This is the largest call-up of reserve forces since the Korean War, and unlike their active-duty counterparts, thousands of so-called citizen soldiers have left behind children caught between two worlds. Neither military nor civilian, they live outside the vast support network available at virtually every base and fort. Yet they represent an almost invisible minority in a public school system only recently aware that they exist.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-fargo27dec27,1,463639.story?coll=la-home-headlines

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[salin]

1. A not so happy holidays for too many

:(

[donsu]

2. men in suits playing war don't care at all about children (or women)

nt