My College Grad/Iraq Veteran Son is in Prison (Part 1 The Beginning)

This is not how I imagined my first born son’s life would turn out. Prison visitations, letter writing, sleepless nights was not how I imagined my retirement would turn out. During these sleepless nights I often ask myself “how did we get here?” and “how could I have prevented this?”.

America, the opioid crisis is real. This is not just a statistic to my family, we are living it daily. You already know how this story ends so I’m going to start at the beginning. My hope is that his story could help at least one person see the signs and prevent this outcome for their family member.

Ray was born and raised in the midwest in a small town of 7,000 by white middle class parents. We weren’t rich by any means, but comfortable regular working class. Ray’s dad was an elected official township road commissioner and I retired from being the Postmaster of this hometown after 30 years with the U S Postal Service. We had 2 sons, Ray first and then Joe two years later. We lived on 4 acres outside of the city and the boys grew up with four wheelers and fishing. We had a lake lot and boat and spent summer weekends camping, skiing and swimming.

Both boys were into sports early on. They started with YMCA basketball when they were barely big enough to hold the ball. Then it was baseball, and then Youth Football. It was always a madhouse of games and schedules in the summer because at 2 years apart they were always on different teams, often playing at same times on different fields. But we loved it. I can even look back nostalgically at Youth football in August, sitting on metal bleachers in the sun watching the boys melt under their full football gear.

Once they reached high school both boys played Freshman football but after that Joe was done with sports. Ray was the athlete, he truly loved basketball. At 6'5" 200' he was perfectly suited physically. He played on every school year’s basketball team from junior high through to graduation. Then he played college basketball all four years as well. We traveled hundreds of miles those years, I probably didn’t miss 10 games total in his entire college career. Now he has a new “team” to play with, shooting hoops during his daily exercise time. No coach for guidance, no referees to keep the game fair, and certainly no mom in the audience cheering him on. But he is grateful for his basketball time none the less. And the Dept of Corrections is nice enough to allow us to buy him basketball shoes! But only from them, no grabbing a sale at Walmart and sending them. Nothing is ever “on sale” from the DOC.

At this point in the story we have Ray ready to graduate with a degree in Criminal Justice. How ironic life is. He was leaning toward starting out in the probation department or counseling. Right about then he got the news that his “little brother” Joe was being deployed to Afghanistan — Operation Enduring Freedom. After high school Joe just was not interested in going the college route yet and he had enlisted in the National Guard, Infantry unit.
As mothers, we are fiercely proud of our sons/daughters who enlist to serve our country. But at the same time, we are scared to death of them being sent into harm’s way. You will never know what they actually went through and how it changed them, because they will never tell you the whole story. I’ll never truly know why Joe being deployed affected Ray so deeply. As soon as he heard Joe was going off to war, Ray became adamant about enlisting himself, and only a unit with an upcoming deployment would do. Joe begged him not to do it and to stay and continue with his post college plans.

Ray was not to be deterred. He also enlisted with the National Guard, and before I knew it, I now had both sons overseas engaged in war. While Joe was based in Kandahar, Afghanistan the unit Ray joined was sent to Iraq. I received pictures of them, identical grim faces taken in different deserts wearing camo, helmets, and holding wicked looking rifles. Thankfully, they both made it home but they were changed men, of course. I can’t pretend to know what was going on in their minds during the transition back to the same old friends who had no understanding of what they had been through. There is a darkness now in both of them that was never there before.

Up next, Part 2 Iraq Aftermath.