kmccarthy, Sat, October 27th, 2007

OK, so we do too much for our kids. This current paintball fascination of Cormac's has been interesting.

"But look,he's out on his bike,then running around in the woods," said my visiting sister-in-law, who swore she would go play paintball at the "scenario" that Cormac and his friends have been planning to attend since they participated in The Invasion of Normandy this summer.

I'm the driver for the Battle of Berlin scenario - and on a really wet Saturday, I'm sitting in the business center of a Marriott hotel in Pennsylvania, having dropped off five boys this morning at a muddy battlefield.

I have rationalized this 1,000 ways in my head, and almost worked through the guilty feeling I got when another family didn't let their son go. My sons are growing up in wartime, really. We all watched "Band of Brothers" during Christmas vacation last week, and spend a lot of time talking about it. Plus, they are boys and those X chromosomes will never be X-er than in these high school years.

Cormac tells me he's mostly interested in this from a historical and tactical position. I greet this sentence with not quite the same full-throated panic that follows when the answer to my question about where homework stands is "everything is under control."

That is to say, Cormac's more interested in tagging people with paint than studying the maneuvers that led to Hitler's demise.

So I dropped them off, made sure they were registered (my secret way of making sure I kept this day for myself), and fled.

The squeamish feeling in my stomach has stayed though, and I wonder if I should have said No to this. So many men, of varying ages, all in camoflauge, I had to flee. Sorry, but this is glorifying war, and it's gross. We're in a war for real, and people are dying, and you're standing around, trying to form cartels to get the best price on paintball pellets.

I thought about it in terms of the boys I'd transported, who said they would stick together rather than join a squad. I do feel that our society is squashing boys' natural instincts. I've watched boys and girls in grade school: boys are just wigglier. I've watched my husband fight valiantly to have heartfelt discussions about our relationship, but sooner or later, I can tell he'd rather have all of his toenails pulled out than listen to me natter on about what I think is wrong ... when even I am willing to admit things are really pretty good.

So maybe days in paintball fields get this out of the boys' systems, and they can sit still and be more civilized in other situations ... like video games. Ugh.

Sorry to ask, guys, but if there were more women leaders, would there be less war?

So all this floats through my head; my big decision will be how much longer this continues, and how I get Chris to tag-team with me in dinner table conversations about the evils of war.

Because it was something I wish nobody had to do for real - kiss a camo-jacketed son goodbye and say "be careful."

God bless all those who fight for real.

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