How do you explain war to a 3 year old?

My son, Hollis, will make pretty much anything (even his railroad track parts) into a sword and he pretends to shoot people all the time.  But at this age he really has no concept of death, aside from the demise of his cat.

The whole discussion started because my husband is preparing for an exercise with his Navy reserve unit.  (The last one he will ever participate in before retiring.  WOOHOO!)  As a reserve family, the Navy has not been a constant presence in our life.  Our boys know that Daddy is in the Navy, but without the constant deployment cycle facing active duty families, that don't really know quite what that means. 

While my husband was getting his uniforms ready, Hollis asked him what an army was and if he could see a picture of one on the computer.  Aside from being amazed at his early grasp of the power of The Google, I realized that I hadn't shown Hollis any pictures of Uncle B lately.  You see, "Uncle B" is off in the middle east having a grand old time in the insane heat, sand and dust.  B's unit has a photo page for friends and family, so I showed Hollis a few of Uncle B that I had found.

Then Hollis requested a photo of an "Army truck."  So we looked at a few shots of Humvees.  On the back of each vehicle is a large sign with two stop signs and a message in Arabic and English.  It reads "DANGER STAY BACK."  Hollis, being in the midst of the Age of Why, wanted to know why they had the signs there.  Oof. 

I tried the standard, "Well, cars and people could get hurt by that big Army truck if they get too close."  He wasn't buying it, pointing out that tractors are bigger.  So I stupidly said, "Sometimes bad people try to get too close to the trucks and blow them up."

Geez, louise, Steph.  What were you thinking?

Hollis, was understandably a bit upset and wanted to know why bad people would want to hurt Uncle B and he also wanted to know where the bad people are.  That led to a whole toddler level discussion about Uncle B trying to make sure that bad people don't hurt anyone ever again.  I couldn't bring myself to try to tell a 3 year old that they want to blow soldiers up to get us out of the middle east.  That's a whole can of worms I just wasn't ready to open.

Hollis barely understands what a country is, let alone a foreign one.  When I recently told him he lived in the United States he insisted, "No, Mommy, I live in Chesapeake."  He also barely understands the concept of God, let alone that there can be different ideas of God taken seriously enough to kill.

This isn't one of those stories where I tie everything up with a neat little parenting or policy bow at the end.  I honestly have no idea how to handle his questions.  I'm just muddling through the best I can without forcing my little man to grow up to the realities of this cruel world too soon.

If someone's going to write yet another parenting manual, I hope they deal with this, the hard stuff, instead of how to handle picking a preschool, educational toys, and the occasional time out.  Because that stuff was a cake walk compared to discussing war.

I wrote this post in May of 2008 for my personal blog, Lawyer Mama. I reread it a few days ago and thought I'd repost it on Blue Star Families since this is an issue so many of us face.  Uncle B came home safely in November of 2008 and Hollis was a ringbearer in his wedding in October of 2009.  Sometimes we do have happy endings.

**Photo from the Golf 237 web site by photographer PFC Joseph Lyons. Uncle B is the soldier with the neon yellow strap.