My Mother and the Military

By Veronica

This weekend my darling fourth daughter was born (you can read about the drama of the birth here), and my mother drove up from her Texas home to help me for awhile. Her visit has reminded me of all sorts of stories about her, and I thought I would share one of my favorites.

When my brother was a student at West Point, the hazing from other students during mealtimes was severe enough that he was prevented from eating. Given the very active schedule the cadets kept, he began to lose weight. My strong, athletic brother lost 17 pounds in the first few weeks of school. He was hungry all the time. We baked him cookies and mailed him food, but the policy then current at West Point was that all packages from home had to be opened in front of a commanding officer, and any food had to be shared equally between the unit. We could bake him 100 cookies and he might only get to eat a couple.

This was unacceptable. My mother knew her son was hungry, and the army was preventing her from feeding her boy.

The next package to my brother was a study in the covert capabilities of my mother. She bought packages of soap, slit them open, filled them with mini candy bars, and flawlessly glued them shut again. She bought a large container of suppositories, emptied and sterilized it, and filled it with peanut butter. Random household items were converted into secret stashes of food. When my brother opened the package in front of his officer, he was flummoxed.

This was not enough, however. My mother began her calling campaign. She called the officer responsible for dealing with irate parents and demanded to know why West Point was starving her son.

“Ma’am, I assure you, no cadet in the history of West Point has ever starved here.”

“Fine – he’s not starving. But he’s hungry. He says he’s hungry all the time and he is considering quitting just because he is HUNGRY. And if my son quits West Point because they are not feeding him enough, then I will write every women’s magazine in the country and tell them NOT to send their children to West Point, because West Point STARVES THEIR CHILDREN.”

“Ma’am, no one is starving your son. Sometimes cadets come here overweight and some weight loss is normal.”

Those were fighting words. My brother the basketball player was the apple of my athletic mama’s eye. “MY SON IS NOT FAT.”

The officer promised to look into my brother’s nutrition. Now my brother began to be hassled for his mother’s complaints that he was starving. He was angry when he called home. Mother was unapologetic. The Officer In Charge of Crazy Angry Parents called my mom to report exactly what my brother had eaten for dinner that night. Mother was not impressed. It was not enough food.

“And he’s not fat, is he?” she asked bluntly.

“No, ma’am. He’s not fat.”

Now that I am a mother – and one who has had nutrition issues with my own babies – I can understand the helpless feeling of knowing your child is hungry. I know why my mother was so angry. And because my mother is a force of nature, even stodgy old West Point had to bend before her will.

The hazing eased. My brother made it onto a sports team that had its own dinner table, where upperclassmen did not prevent plebes from eating. And due in part to my mother, the policy enforcing the sharing of food packages was changed; my brother could eat all of what we sent him. He gained back enough weight to stay healthy. My mother rested on her laurels, certain that the spectre of starvation had been beaten back by her vigilance.

“Your mother doesn’t like to be thwarted,” my father says. Truer words were never spoken.

Find Veronica writing at Toddled Dredge.