Off to War by Deborah Ellis

will be all right and Daddy will come back. I do that as long as I can and if he still doesn’t stop crying I pass him over to Mom and she tries.
    He doesn’t sleep by himself. He gets out of his own bed and crawls in with me or with Mom.
    Even with all those tears, my brother says he wants to join the army, to be just like Daddy.
    I’m not joining the army. I’m going to join the peace corps, because you get to travel and you get to help people. I’d like to do something to help animals, too. We have a cat named Spikey, and two Siberian huskies, Lady and Charley. Spikey gets along okay with Charley, but fights a lot with Lady.
    The president sent my dad to Afghanistan because he’s running out of other soldiers to send. So many have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan that the army is running out of people. They’re fighting to serve our country, but I don’t really understand how.
    The good thing about being a military kid? Well, there was a fair in Hope Mills and we got in free because Dad’s in the army. I can’t think of any other good things.
    I have friends in school who are not military kids, but I wouldn’t talk to them about my life even if they were military, because I wouldn’t want to cry in front of them.
    I do my best to keep my mind on other things, like my dreams and what I need to do, and if I have any advice for other army kids, I guess that’s it. Find a way to be strong and get through it.
    One day we’ll find a way to not have war. We’ll just talk to each other and say, “Let’s be friends instead of foes.” Kids do that all the time.

Rachel, 13
    Paganism, a pre-Christian religion that honors the elements of nature — air, fire, water and earth — is just one of the many religions practiced by members of the military. Many American bases have Wiccan or Pagan ceremonies and groups, and there is even a special Military Pagan Blessing. The Department of Veterans Affairs allows the Pagan symbol — the pentacle — to be engraved on soldiers’ headstones, as with other religious symbols.
    Rachel lives in Michigan, where her stepfather is a major in the air force, and her father is a tech sergeant in the Michigan National Guard.
    My father has been to Iraq twice. The first time was in February of 2004. I was living with my mother and stepfather in Nebraska, but I was visiting my dad and stepmom in Michigan when Dad got the call to go.
    We were at a Military Pagan convention at the time. It was supposed to have been a great time. There’s a big Pagan community on the base here, and the convention should have been wonderful. There were three days of classes, drumming circles,discussions, ceremonies. My mom and stepdad were even planning to renew their vows! We were all having a wonderful time, and then the phone rang, and they told Dad he was going to Iraq.
    I reacted really strongly. I was ten or eleven at the time, and I got quite hysterical. I was crying and hyperventilating. I was so angry! Looking back, I don’t know why I was so surprised. I knew about the war. I just didn’t think it had anything to do with me.
    I wasn’t a sheltered kid — 9/11 happened and I knew about that. Since that time I think a lot of kids pay more attention to what’s going on in the world than they usually would have otherwise.
    I remember being very nervous after 9/11 because I had to fly a lot to visit one parent or the other. In fact, I had to fly again the week after 9/11 happened. It made me look at all the passengers a little differently, wondering if one of them was going to do something crazy and horrible.
    The first time Dad went to Iraq, he found out a week and a half before he had to leave, and I had to leave him to go back to my mom’s house just two days after he found out. There was so little time! The stepmother took me to a Build-a-Bear place, and we made a bear for him to take over. Instead of