Children Learning Hard Lessons of War

Two 11-year-old students anxiously told their teacherThursday what they’ve heard--that Saddam Hussein stole babies from incubators and that 150 American airplanes were shot down.

Yet it’s more than the wide-eyed retelling of scary rumors that link Dian Miller’s 32 students at Del Rios Elementary School in Oceanside to the distant Gulf War.

Many of the children are the sons and daughters of Camp Pendleton Marines. When they talk about the war in class it is not only about what they hear but what they feel; and they use words like lonely, afraid and waiting.

They are feelings that Miller, a gentle-voiced Alabamian in a blue work shirt and a long, faded jean skirt, can relate to.

Especially the waiting.

“Boy, I sure feel that one,” said Miller, who hasn’t seen her husband, a Marine ordnance officer, since September. He’s gone to war, too.

These days, war has its own corner of Room 11, where Miller used to have more time to tell her class of exceptional fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders about conserving natural resources and other subjects.

Now, the students’ careful drawings of potted plants and other pretty things that grow are sharing wall space with a colored map labeled Mideast Crisis Map.

A newspaper clipping shows Presidents Bush and Hussein, their mouths tensed in anger, their hands slicing for emphasis.

As much as she might want to, Miller cannot make her class a haven from war any more than she can save her students from the saturation coverage in the news, or the sorrow they sense in their own homes.

So Miller and the children talk about the war every morning.

“What I’m trying to do is make them aware of the world and how it affects them, but I don’t want to instill fear,” said Miller, who has taught for two years at this school in a subdivision of modest stucco homes near Camp Pendleton’s back gate.

She asked the pupils what they know.

Jamese Moore, 11, said she learned some frightening facts from an adult. “The reason the war is going on is Saddam Hussein wanted more land. He went in (to Kuwait) and took clothes because he wanted them, and babies out of incubators,” she said.

It may be 8:45 in the morning, but there are no sleepy heads resting sideways on the desk. Arms are waving, their owners impatient to be called on, and feet are rocking nervously under chairs.

Miller, perched atop a tall wooden stool, hands pressed together as if in prayer, challenges the racially mixed class to think about how fighting and killing must feel for other people.

What were emotions like in Israel when an American Patriot anti-missile rocket shot down an incoming Iraqi missile?

“They probably feel better because they won’t be afraid of missiles anymore,” offered Chuck Powell, 11, who added that he gets his information from watching CNN.

Suddenly, hands shot up and the children’s thoughts came out in a rush.

“The Patriot missile, I heard it was $1 million to shoot one,” said Shaun Howie, 10. “It comes from our taxes.”

Nobody says outright that they are afraid, but there are traces of underlying tension among children trying to understand why their father, mother or other relative suddenly went away, among the more than 20,000 Camp Pendleton troops shipped overseas.

The day after war broke out, Miller said, her classroom was an emotional shambles.

“The room was in turmoil, they were arguing, they couldn’t get along,” she said. It took days for her class to settle, but the students’ comments show that calm is only on the surface.

Josh Valdez, 12, said a woman told his family the draft might resume in order to get more troops for the war. “My mom and my brother were up all night. He was worried, he doesn’t want to go,” Valdez said.

Jason De Armond, 11, said, “I keep hearing Saddam Hussein said he shot down 150 of our planes and stuff.”

Miller soothingly explains that much of what the children hear is intended to make people worry.

“The word I would use is propaganda,” Miller said. “Do you know that word? Bringing out information that’s untrue to make the other side feel insecure.”

The 15-year veteran teacher wants to try something else. She calls it “brainstorming,” when she asks the students to shout out words in free association with Desert Storm.

A torrent of 100 words includes troops, jeeps, Camp Pendleton, prisoners, parents, lunatics, holy war, guns, blood, World War III, death and body bags.

Miller hurriedly writes them on the board, then asks for words about feelings. What she hears: sad, nervous, depressed, mad, scared, afraid, lonely, terrified, waiting.

Two of the very last words from the children are peace and hope.