Iraq – or Afghanistan.

I grew up idolizing soldiers. After becoming one, they didn’t give me a war. I volunteered for Desert Storm, but my paperwork got lost in the shuffle. Being a combat soldier for 10 years (Regular Army and Reserves combined) with no combat is the facsimile of being on a football team for 10 years and never getting off the bench.

I’m glad I didn’t get to go to Desert Storm. It wasn’t an Infantryman’s war. It was a Pilot’s war. But this one is different. This is house-to-house, face-to-face, hand-to-hand combat: Blood and guts and grenade pins.

I’m 45 now. That’s decrepit for a combat soldier.

But I also idolized war correspondents. Not the rear echelon types reporting from the green zone. I envied guys like Ernie Pyle, Andy Rooney, Bill Mauldin, Rudyard Kipling and Virgil, who reported from the battlefield. After reading their work, you had to catch your breath. You felt like you’d been there.

That, I can do.

I thought I was OK this time. President Bush announced he was sending troops to Afghanistan after 9/11, and I didn’t get the itch – not until younger guys from the factory started getting called back to the service. I was being left behind once again.

I came home from work one day with that forlorn, far away look in my eye, and my wife said, “Go. Go ahead. You know you want to.” But it would be too irresponsible. I’m the sole breadwinner in my family, and it would be the nth of selfishness to abandon them to chase glory.

But if I were unattached…

Right now, there are young Americans abroad, performing feats of heroism that defy the imagination. But we’re not reading their stories. We’re not debriefing them as they clean their weapons, recounting their exploits. We’re not getting the human-interest angle. And they’re not getting the honor they’re due.

We’re getting death tolls. We’re both getting ripped.

It’s as though America doesn’t know how to do war anymore. They’re doing things over there that would make our hearts pound with pride if only we knew. But I won’t be over there chronicling it. I’ll be right here, making my heart pound by shoveling snow.

Mike VanOuse

Lafayette