INTERVIEW WITH PAT GUNN

Pat� son, Jason, 24, is with the Army� 137 Armored Brigade. He was badly wounded in an attack and, after weeks of recuperation, he was sent back to combat in Iraq.

Pat: Jason drives humvees. He was driving with three other soldiers when an IED exploded under them. The Sergeant was killed outright. Jason was badly cut by shrapnel on the left side of his body, an artery was severed, he lost his hearing, and, when he was pulled from the vehicle, his uniform was smoldering.

He was treated in a MASH unit immediately for the severed artery then flown to Germany for longer-term treatment.

We heard about the accident when an Army Captain called from Germany telling us, �ason was injured today. Its not life-threatening.�/p>

A tank commander called from Iraq a short while after that telling me the same thing.

That was Saturday. I kept in touch with the hospital as my husband and I went through the process of getting passports, buying tickets �the company I work for was wonderful, they purchased first class tickets for us �and preparing to go to Germany. It was tough. I called my congressman to get things expedited and was told that, unless Jason was dead or dying, there was nothing much he could do to help. Even things like finding the exact address of the hospital was difficult

We arrived there on Thursday. We stayed on the base in Fisher House, which is something like a Ronald McDonald place. That way, we didn� have to go through all the security checks every day.

I think the hospital was very surprised to see us. And one has to be invited into a military hospitalyou don� just walk in like you do in a civilian hospital. On first entering the ward, there were a cluster of medical personnel around him and I was struggling to get at him. First I had to put on gloves because he had some kind of skin infection and I sobbed the whole time. Finally, they let me see him.

All I could think of was getting Jason out of there and getting him home. I felt he� recover a lot faster if I could get him to his own home and we could take care of him amidst his family and friends. Jason is one of a set of triplets and both his brothers followed him into the military. Justin was in Korea. Jerome was injured in boot camp and left. They know what the military is about. So do I. I was in the Navy for six years. I knew home and family was the best place for him at that point.

He was so drugged up that he was quite content to just lie there and not get up. But I felt it was important that he try. After ten days the hospital released him to go back to our own home.

He was home for five weeks. I had to change the dressings on his wounds. Some of the wounds were very deep, more like big holes in his flesh, and I had to wet the gauze before packing the wounds. Then wet it again to remove it. At one point, I was on my knees tending to him and he was looking down at me. I realized how grateful I was that he was still alive. As part of my protest against this war I�e met a number of mother� whose children have been killed over there. I see what the war and the deaths of their children have done to them.

My son was badly wounded but I had the opportunity to nurse him back to health. At least he was still alive.

He had to use a cane to walk out of our home and go back to the military.

Once he arrived back in Germany it was just a matter of time before they figured he was ready to begin his duties again. Imagine my shock �and his �when we learned they were sending him back to his combat unit in Iraq.

Something went on back there where they got him to sign a stack of papers saying he felt fit enough �emotionally and physically �to go back to Iraq. I know he was suffering emotionally. He was traumatized and yet he signed the papers they stuck in front of him. I asked him on the phone whether it was true that he� signed of his own free will. He was very guarded and didn� respond directly. He said, �� back where I belong.�Yet just the day before he told me that there was no way he was getting back on that plane that would return him to Iraq.

I� very worried. At the hospital I met a young fellow who is the only survivor of a helicopter crash. When the Marines told him it was time to go back he became suicidal. I open a congressional inquiry about why Jason is being sent back against medical advice but, because he signed his papers, there� not much the doctors can do against the military.

Now I just get one or two line emails from him. He never says much. His voice on the phone is dull and automatic. He changes the subject whenever I ask how he� doing.

I�e participated in many anti-war rallies and given some interviews. One pro-war reporter of a local newspaper called and asked for an interview. Then, instead of listening to me, he screamed at everything I said, countering me and shoving his opinions down my throat. He simply won� hear what anyone says to balance out his strong opinions. I don� know what he� even doing in that job he� so bad at it.

Unfortunately that attitude is quite common in this country. People don� know how to listen to one another, or to listen to a different opinion, and they don� know how to respond to someone who disagrees with them in a manner that is conducive to dialoging. And that� exactly the same thing we�e seeing in our foreign policy. This war should never have been started in the first place. We should have been able to find a better way to resolve the conflict. Now we have a real mess on our hands. And our children are suffering grievously or dying.