A Mother's Road to Kandahar
When you think of Mother's Day, the traditional gifts come to mind, like cheesy greeting cards, flowers and chocolates. This year, it is safe to assume that Andria Hill-Lehr would like you to skip the sweets and, instead, buy your mother a copy of her new book, detailing her own struggle as an outspoken peace activist whose son, Garrow, recently served as a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.
A Mother's Road to Kandahar presents Hill-Lehr's complicated and emotional experience of being a military mom who is critical of Canada's role in Afghanistan, with her child who is voluntarily participating in the mission.
Public criticism of the military's agenda or of the politicians' barking the orders is rarely heard from the mouths of soldiers' families. There are exceptions, of course, like the notorious American mother Cindy Sheehan who started a protest across from Bush's Texas ranch after her son was killed in Iraq. Here in Canada, however, we have heard little opposition from the families of the soldiers who are fighting in Afghanistan. Hill-Lehr's book, then, represents something of a landmark in opening this topic up for discussion.
A reservist, her son volunteered to go to Afghanistan, motivated by a genuine desire to change the world and the belief that the military intervention in that country was one with good intentions and peacekeeping in mind. The book gives an intimate account of how the lives of military families are affected when a loved one is shipped off to war. Hill-Lehr shows the anxiety of being a mother, worried about her child, while trying to maintain her own life and care for her other children who are traumatized by their own concern for their brother's safety.
The recruitment of Garrow to the military started young, with the Cadets, a government subsidized military youth group for children. Hill-Lehr touches briefly on the impact of marketing the military to youth in this country, including how this worked to pique her own son's interest.
The increase in military marketing in Canada has been substantial in recent years, since we became a country at war. You cannot watch a hockey game or movie without seeing the high production value advertisements about "fighting fear, fighting distress and fighting chaos" (isn't "fighting chaos" an oxymoron?) playing on young Canadians' desire to both help the world and experience adventure. Of course, they haven't forgotten about the power of face-to-face recruitment either, as the military has become a ubiquitous presence at every parade and public celebration across the country.
The book's strongest and most engaging element is the unique relationship between a mother and son, both articulate and opinionated, in struggle over Canada's role in Afghanistan.
The bond between them — and the Canadian military — is an emotionally charged one, especially when the son and the army are the only ones seeing eye-to-eye. As a mother, she is determined that the military will not take her child away from her because of their political differences, while showing at the same time that his decision to go to war affects not only his life, but affects all those who love them. Hill-Lehr clearly "supports the troops," and not just because her flesh and blood is one of them. What she objects to are the politicians and politics behind the decision to head to Afghanistan.
This book could have been stronger, however, if the reader was given more insight into Garrow's experience of being a solider in Afghanistan. That's a story we rarely hear about in more depth than the platitudes and the sound bites of top generals on the evening news. And it's too bad, since the soldiers have experiences that few on either side of the political debate over the war can imagine.
Few among us, most likely, could fathom a familial disagreement as profound as the one described in A Mother's Road to Kandahar and thankfully, her son returned from Afghanistan alive, so their personal debates continue. This Mother's Day, we owe Hill-Lehr thanks for sharing her own personal experience and for making an important contribution to the critical discussion about Canada at war.—Gina Whitfield
