In school, students will ask the teacher why we have to learn about our history. I remember asking my teacher that exact same question. The teacher told me, “So that we may learn from our mistakes, and not repeat the past.” Ever since then, I have had an interest in history. I found myself fascinated with history. I would spend hours just reading about the revolutionary war, and the beginnings of our county. By the time I was twelve years old I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I was older. I wanted to become a history teacher, and I did. At the age of twenty-five with the degree in hand, I took a job as a teacher at my old school. I have been a teacher ever since.
That was fifteen years ago. I still love history, and still love teaching it to younger kids. Except now, my perspectives have changed. Ever since the year 2009, the economy has been slowly receding, and eight years ago, the President officially announced that our country was slipping deeper into depression. The news wasn’t all that bad for me, until Alex, my husband, came home and told me that he was laid-off at work and officially unemployed. It was a sad day for my family. My income wouldn’t be enough for us to live in our home anymore. We were going to move in with my sister, but her family was going through the exact same thing. It was a very scary time for all of us.
For a whole week Alex looked for a job, while Mark, my ten-year-old son, and I stayed in a shelter. By the end of the week, my sister found me, and she had an idea. She offered that we rent an apartment together and share the rent until we could afford our own house again. It was a great idea, and by the next week, we had moved into an apartment. Alex found a job, so we started looking for a new house. Things were looking up for us until the day the United States and Russia went to war.
It wasn’t even a month after we moved into the apartment when we learned that Russia declared war on America. We knew for several years that the two countries had not been getting along, but we didn’t expect them to go to war. Both the United States and Russia agreed not to use nuclear weapons, but we feared that could change in a moment. The good thing to come out of the war was that Alex was able to enlist and housing was provided for us to live. We now had another income, and we were able to send Mark back to school. Though Alex was off to war, at least we were able to provide for our family. We just hoped he would return home alive.
My sister, Valerie, was able to get a house as well. Her husband enlisted, and went to war with Alex. Though she lived on the other side of town, we talked often over the phone, and she would come visit me after work. Valerie didn’t have any children of her own, so she loved spending time with her nephew. Life wasn’t great, but Valerie and I were making it through the hard time together.
Two years later Valerie called me crying. She told me that two soldiers visited her today at her house, and told her that her husband died in battle. Although she was awarded the money for his life insurance, she was devastated. At least she was given thirty days to find a new house to live in. My sister doesn’t mind challenges in her life, but with her income being so low, and the government taxing the life insurance money, she would be lucky if she could afford an apartment. She asked if she could stay at my house until she was able to find a better paying job. I love my sister, and to see her suffering like that was too much to handle. I agreed to let her stay, and she moved in the next day.
It wasn’t long after, that I received another call, this one from my sister-in-law, Anna, telling me her situation. She told me that my brother got into a car accident, and died instantly. She was a stay at home mom with two children, and needed a place to stay until she could find a job as well. The day she moved in, I received a call from my mom asking if she could stay with me. I was about to tell her that she couldn’t, I already had too many people in my house, until she told me that father just died in his sleep. The government was about to kick her out of her house because she couldn’t pay her bills. In one month, my whole world fell apart. I missed my husband, and now I had to take care of the girls in my family.
I hoped that the war would get better over time, but it didn’t. The military needed more soldiers, so they started drafting men into the army. There was a couple, not much older than me, who lived right next door. I didn’t see much of them. Until one day when the husband walked out of the house. He had a bag over his shoulder walking to his car. His wife was crying on the porch as she watched him drive away. He had received a letter from the military, and had to leave for war. It was heartbreaking to see her cry like that. As I watched her cry, the realization came to me that history was repeating itself. We never seem to learn from our mistakes.
Things continued to get worse after that. Drafting had become a regular thing. When a boy turned eighteen, he was drafted. I feared for my son’s life. I didn’t want him to go to war unless it was his choice. I tried to think of ways to avoid him receiving a letter. I thought about sending him to a different country, or faking his death. I almost considered putting him in a special educational class, in order to convince the government that he was mental. I wasn’t thinking rationally at the time, and eventually discarded the idea. I didn’t know what to do. I was already afraid for Alex’s life; to fear for Mark’s life would be more than I could bear.
There was only one way to save my son from the war, and I could not financially afford it. Ever since the declaration of the depression, the government had become corrupt. Government officials believed they were above the law, and began treating people poorly. However, that wasn’t the worst. If people had enough money, they could bribe the government to keep their sons from the draft and from going to war. It was morally wrong, and they knew it. Except, they didn’t care, as long as they got their money they were happy. They didn’t care about the military or the people who were sacrificing themselves for their country.
It had been almost eight years since Alex left to join the military. Mark was in his last year of school, Anna and Valerie were working together in a children’s day care. With my mother having pneumonia, she was in bed most of the time. We had to keep the children far enough away from her so they wouldn't catch it either. She could barely get out of bed without having a coughing fit. My cousin would visit us to check on my mom, and gave her antibiotics to take, but it just wasn’t enough. She didn’t charge us like other doctors usually did because she knew our financial situation. Because of my mom’s age and situation, I didn’t think she would live much longer.
Alex sent me letters once every month since his departure, and didn’t miss a single one. He often talked about how much he missed Mark and me, and about the people he has met. I always looked forward to reading about what was going on. Three months before Mark’s eighteenth birthday, I stopped receiving Alex’s letters. I didn’t know what had happen to him and I began to panic and fear that he may have died. Everyone living in my house was still there because my husband was still alive. If he died, we would have had to find an apartment we could live in together.
Not long after I stopped receiving his letters, two soldiers knocked on my front door. Before I could even answer the door I burst into tears, I had lost my husband, and my whole world fell apart right in front of me again. They told me he died in battle, and that he was a good soldier. I, too, was awarded money for Alex’s life insurance, and I, too, was given thirty days to move out.
In that moment, I had a decision to make. I had enough money to pay the government and keep my son from the draft, but at the same time, I needed the money to support my family. I was frustrated with myself because this was supposed to be an easy decision, but I couldn’t give up on the option of preventing my son from leaving for war. It went against everything I believed in, and I couldn’t make the decision. I stood there in the doorway of my house unable to decide. Maybe taking my own life was the answer I needed. I fell to my knees and began to weep for my husband’s death. If only I could run away to another country, a place far from war. Even though tragedy has plagued my country, I cannot leave it; my love for Mother Russia was too strong.
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