This tears at my heart

A dramatisation of Pfc Jesse Givens' last letter home (before he died in 2003, 28 days before his son was born)--the song is sung by Cantus, a men's chorus.



For the story behind the letter, please see: Pfc Jesse Givens: A Legacy.

That unborn child is going to turn five this year, along with this war.

I never believed in the war, but I believe in the men and women fighting it. I do support the troops and part of the reason for that is I spent the first fifteen years of my life on Air Force bases--and the first six of them as a child of a soldier in Southeast Asia.

There is a photo of me, I guess I was two, pointing to a picture of my father as if asking, 'Is that my daddy?' That photo always seemed to bother my mom. I think she thought it might be all I knew of my father. In the grand scheme of things, that may have been okay. My father was not prepared to raise a child and to be a father, and his own insecurities and background ruined any chance we had to have a healthy relationship. I think his time in Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia did, too. I never knew my father before he went to war; he went to basic training whilst I was in the womb, was at more training when I was born, several states away. He went to Vietnam, when I was barely one. I have recorded 'letters' home from him, where he is tired, disillusioned, but trying to soldier on. My mother erased the one where you could hear the shrapnel. I've always wondered how different he might have been without his wartime experiences.

If he'd died, I'd have an idyllic father whose memory couldn't tarnish; people would forget the bad qualities and focus on the good ones. But as much as I sometimes wish I'd never known my father, I'd rather have one with all the frailities of a human being than just have some idea of a father, which is what these children will be left with. I think the little boy kissing his daddy to sleep each night--on a screen of a tape that was made the night before he left, did it the most for me; I cried.

Wherever Melissa Givens and her sons are today, I hope they are well. I'm sorry for their loss, and I hope they find happiness in their lives.