A miserable March day, overcast and cold, rain spit on our faces. Parents, spouses, and children all locked in the same nightmare, a bad dream, an insanity sending men and women off to war but somehow we agreed to let this thing happen. Behind our kids, behind our soldiers standing at attention, there is a graveyard. I am not amused by the irony; I am a part of it. This was the first day of what would be a God-awful fifteen months. On Mother’s Day, two months later, our son the soldier and his National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.