Off to War by Deborah Ellis Page B

things that really bothers Dad, losing my uncle. He keeps imagining how my uncle died. He’s got these terrible things in his head now.
    One of my friends has a dad whose job it is to tell people about the status of their loved ones. He has to tell them when someone is hurt overseas or killed. That’s a terrible job to have.
    My stepmother is really big in the anti-war movement. Both her and Dad are. They’re both really big on stopping the war and bringing the troops home. They’ve been to huge anti-war rallies in Washington, DC. My stepmother took my little brother once. He was only six years old, but he went on stagein front of thousands of people and said, “Bring the troops home now!”
    I think that part of them being against the war is because they’re Pagans. Being a Pagan is all about respecting the earth and being tuned in to nature. Pagans call on the power of the four elements: air, fire, earth and water. It’s about everyone finding their own power and their own spirit, and not using their power to oppress other people. My stepmother is writing a book about Pagans in the military. There are a lot of them.
    I’m not a Bush supporter. I don’t hate him, but I don’t support him. He’s encouraged all these terrible stereotypes of Muslim people. A lot of Muslims in my country are scared because people automatically think they’re terrorists.
    I read in a magazine that some American soldiers raped a fourteen-year-old girl in Iraq, then killed her and her whole family and burned down their house. Bush says we’re in Iraq to help the Iraqi people, but how is that helping?
    After 9/11, the government said, “We’ve got to find Osama bin Laden.” I don’t know what happened, but suddenly it became, “We’ve got to get Saddam Hussein.” It’s very confusing for me, but I’ll keep trying to stay on top of it.
    My dad says if he could go back in time, he’d join the coast guard instead of what he did join. He says the coast guard does useful, necessary work and is more involved in rescuing people than in killing them. If my little brother decides to join the military, Dad won’t be happy. He wouldn’t disown him, but he wouldn’t be happy.
    One of my friends is going into the K9 division of the army. She’ll be working with dogs. A recruiter calls her every single day to make sure she hasn’t changed her mind. My dad is trying to talk her out of it but he’s not having any success. She’s off to boot camp next week. She’s excited about it because she loves working with dogs and sees the army as a way she canmake a good living doing what she loves. She’s even looking forward to boot camp. She doesn’t think she’ll be deployed overseas.
    I’d rather do dance and theater. I’ve been doing dance since I was six. When I was seven I joined a dance group in Nebraska, and I also did gymnastics. I’ll be starting in a new dance studio in Michigan in the fall. I’m hoping to join the dance team at school, or cheerleading.
    My ultimate goal is to be a choreographer. I like yoga, too, so my stepmom suggested that I could open a studio that does dance and yoga. That would be a way I could bring beauty into the world, to help make up for so much that is ugly.

Breckyn, 12
    Home Leave Travel Assistance (HLTA) is a service that helps Canadian military personnel come home on leave during overseas postings. Home leave can come at almost any point in the deployment. Sometimes it comes in the middle, or sometimes closer to the end. For families it can be a welcome break in the routine they have established during their military parent’s absence. For younger children, home leave can be confusing. Suddenly their mother or father is home and then just as suddenly, they are gone again.
    Breckyn’s father is a corporal based in Petawawa, Ontario.
    My father’s job is supply tech. He