Don't Worry, Mom. I'm Safe.

Just two days ago, after a Kuwaiti layover lasting nearly a month, I heard from Tommi for the first time from “in country.” A chance exchange of email found us on our computers at the same time, and only minutes passed before we were exchanging instant messages. She explained that outgoing troops were being jointly housed with incoming troops in both living and working quarters, making a phone call home the prize of a two-hour wait in line. We celebrated the connection we’d found, shared the “love-you”s and the “miss you”s that are a part of the package of having a soldier/child gone to war. And then we found one another on that frequency of friendship with which we both most define our relationship.

She tells me about where she lives – a dorm-like room she can decorate to her own liking, though she adds that she is “scrounging” the left-behinds of other soldiers in an effort to conserve funds. Top news is the air conditioning/heater unit installed by a couple of new friends – contractor types who mention mischievously in passing that they’ve left a surprise. “And you know what it was?” she says all in caps, “a remote control … for the air conditioner! … a remote control! Sweet.” Small celebrations give single moments long life. It's still winter there, she explains, and it's cold in the desert at night - hot in the day.

Then, tentative at first, Tommi eases into the meat of conversation, broaching the threshold of do or don’t say – should or shouldn’t tell me the parts of her world that will steal the comfort away from mine.

“They put extra deadbolt locks on my door before they left … for safety.” I furrow my brow and question the statement: For safety? where is her room? isn’t she on base? can Iraqi fighters get on base? “No,” she answers and pauses. The words on the page stand deadly still. “I need you to be ready to hear the things I’m going to say,” she says.

“Ok. I’m ready. What?”

The locks keep female soldiers protected from other U.S. troops. There haven’t been any recent incidents reported, she offers in assurance, but a significant number of reports in previous months have prompted female soldiers to take added precautions. Though Tommi hadn’t known, her contractor friends had acted on her behalf, and she wants me not to worry. She wants me to know she’s safe.

The screen between us mediates the sound of my voice, and Tommi believes me to be in command of my emotions, believes my responses crisp with confidence. I keep typing to belie my bewildered distress at the words I am reading from her. She has been trained. She is prepared to engage the enemy. Was she supposed to believe the enemy would be inside the gate? Confined to a post of over 20,000 people – so few of whom are women – on the other side of the world, and the whole point is … what? Tell me the answer is freedom. Go ahead and tell me that again.

And she says to the face on her screen, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m safe.”