A Salute to My Son, the Soldier

“No, not like that, Mom. Like this.”

I’m standing in the family room, and my 6-foot-1 son is teaching me how to salute. I note how the tips of Roman’s fingers lightly touch near his eyebrow. How his hand, wrist and forearm form a nice straight line that angles in sharply at his elbow. With his arm lifted like that, I can’t help but also notice how the waistband of his boxers billows above the belt loops of his hip-hugging jeans.

I try again. “Better,” he says, nodding.

A booklet he brought home a few days ago, compliments of the local Army recruiter, lies open on the coffee table. In it are things every new recruit needs to know, including whom to salute, and how.

My son is a new recruit.

He has much to learn. And, I’m afraid, so do I.

We’re not a military family, though my father was proud to have served in the infantry in World War II. We’re no more patriotic than most. Not particularly political either. So how did our son come to enlist? A combination of things. Both he and his older sister, now a senior at Stanford, were raised with the phrase “when you go to college.” But last year, Roman, 18 and headstrong, decided he didn’t want college, at least not right after high school. He’d work instead at the firm where he was a part-time Web designer.

When that company folded after he graduated, Roman decided to move to a city 100 miles away with a buddy. Life would be his classroom. But he found that particular course harder than he ever expected. After 9/11, jobs were scarce for self-taught Webmasters in baggy jeans. So he made ends meet -- barely -- with odd jobs.

“Have you thought any more about college? Your dad and I would help with that, you know,” I said on more than one occasion when he came home for a weekend visit. But he was determined to make it on his own.

And so, in his quest for independence, my maverick son has joined forces with Uncle Sam. His lease up, his enlistment papers signed, Roman’s back at home before heading to basic training in Ft. Benning, Ga.

Every morning over coffee I unfold the newspaper and debate whether to read the Iraq stories. Before now, I’d read news of conflicts in the Middle East and other parts of the world, but that was when the term “troops” was just another word in the headlines.

Now, that word has a face, and that face belongs to someone I met for the first time 18 years ago in a hospital delivery room. That day I looked into my newborn son’s eyes and thought about all that life might hold for him. Foxholes on the outskirts of Baghdad were not on the list.

It’s the day before he’s scheduled to leave. Taking a break from packing up stuff in his room, Roman shuffles over, plops down beside me on the couch. Without preamble, he lays his head on my shoulder. He hasn’t willingly done this since maybe the third grade. I slip an arm around him, press my lips against his bristly hair.

Today, our family’s private D-Day has arrived. Roman strides down the hall, his backpack slung over one shoulder. He puts it down to say goodbye. At the front door, he and his dad hug in that self-conscious men-who-know-each-other-well hug. Then it’s my turn. I wrap my arms around his waist, my tears mottling the T-shirt he just ironed.

“Love you,” I blubber.

“Me, too, Mom,” he whispers.

He turns, picks up his backpack. My husband and I follow him and his sister, who’s driving him to the pickup point, out to the car at the curb.

Roman slides in on the passenger side. Just before he closes the door, he looks over at his dad and me standing together in the yard where he used to play hide-and-seek, and my eyes meet his.

Suddenly, I lift my hand, wrist and forearm in a nice straight line, making sure the tips of the fingers of my right hand lightly touch near my eyebrow. With a crooked smile, Roman returns this salute. Then, facing straight ahead, my soon-to-be-a-soldier son looks toward a future that none of us in this new world can be sure of.