BACK HOME
The door knocker doesn't make a sound, with the wooden stakes of two small American flags wedged between it and the front door. But the note taped above is blunt proof that the Williams family must know if anyone comes calling.
"Home of Marine L. Cpl. Daniel T. Williams
Son of Mr/Mrs Dan/Micki Williams
In Emergency — if we are not at home
Please Call us Immediately"
Each of their cell phone numbers follows.
Dan and Micki Williams have no delusions about why they hang that note on the door: If their son, Danny, dies in Iraq, solemn men in military uniforms will come to their front door to tell them first, face to face. They might be at work or the beach, or visiting family in their native Pennsylvania … or simply shopping at the grocery store.
Inside the Williamses' Eastside townhome is a juxaposition of hope and fear, of the comfort of symbolism and a willingness to accept stark reality.
The couple's study is a tribute to their beloved Pittsburgh Steelers; beneath a framed picture of the old Three Rivers Stadium, a stuffed bear in a Steelers jersey has a trademark Terrible Towel draped over each arm.
The shrine to far-less-anxious times is also where the computer burns the midnight oil.
It's almost always online, so that both parents can check regularly to see if Danny is trying to contact them through instant messaging — and so that Micki, every day, can visit a Web page that chronicles each American casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Marine bandana tied around the neck of a bulldog statue near the fireplace. The disproportionate number of pictures of one child over his siblings. The yellow "Support Our Troops" pin that Mom has worn so much she can no longer keep it glued together.
This is the home of thousands of mothers and fathers, of spouses and anyone else who sits powerless to control the safety of those they can't possibly imagine living without.
This is the home of those who read the newspaper and know there's a real possibility that the next story headlined "Four U.S. soldiers killed by roadside bomb" could be a report about their soldier.
"Right now, if I could take his place … what parent wouldn't?" Dan says. "Every parent is doing what we're doing right now. We're not doing anything special; we're just subjected to it."
Like so many other parents, Dan and Micki want nothing more than to have their youngest son back, healthy and safe from stray bullets and suicide bombers.
If only he wanted to stay home.
His story
Like the stories of so many soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Danny's is one of duty and survival, trying at once to win and to avoid the same fate as the more than 2,000 who have been killed in action.
The true, unembellished story is that he is no iconic Sgt. Stryker in "Sands of Iwo Jima," nor is he a disillusioned Capt. Willard in "Apocalypse Now."
He is, instead, Dan and Micki say, a single, 24-year-old, somewhat unpredictable youngest child of three in a family with little military legacy. He was a self-absorbed young man who ambled through boarding school and college with little purpose before he found the discipline of the Marines.
Danny floated through Drexel University on an academic scholarship to study information technology, a scholarship that his parents say he won less because he worked to have good grades than because he always scored exceptionally well on achievement tests.
After leaving Drexel for Penn State, Danny dropped out of college for good.
He found what he needed, though. In February 2003, he joined the Marines, just at the time former Secretary of State Colin Powell was trying to convince the United Nations that forces should invade Iraq.
Dan says his son was no ideologue. He simply always enjoyed doing what few else were doing and wanted to find discipline that seemed so elusive, even when he attended the regimented, all-boys Kiski prep school in Pennsylvania.
Danny was snowboarding when everyone was skiing, his dad says. He was joining the Marines when a full-scale war was about to erupt.
Danny always needed more special attention from his parents than his siblings, says his sister, Jenna McDermed, who is only 18 months older than Danny and is now serving a medical school internship in Miami.
Not only was he the baby, Jenna says, but growing up "he was the wild spirit of our family." Danny would be known to cut out on vacation as a young adult and not tell anyone.
Jenna says she finds it ironic that now that he's answered his parents' prayers and has become responsible, that responsibility is causing more worry than ever before.
"They always worried about Dan more than anyone," she says. "He's always been the one they've kind of had to look out for. In a way, he's still kind of doing the wild thing, but how can you say he's not doing the right thing?"
Danny's job description (which his parents can't divulge for security reasons) creates an environment in which the family knows little about where he is and what he's doing. It was a job description they originally thought would keep him in the United States.
Instead, Danny was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and in March 2004 he requested assignment to Iraq. His military superiors told him that he was needed more in Okinawa, but Danny insisted, his parents say.
After a short homecoming — during which he revealed a scar on his rear end caused by shrapnel from a roadside bomb — Danny requested a second tour of duty in Iraq.
Dan and Micki are sure that if Danny is able to make it home by October as planned, it will only be temporary. He's sure to volunteer to go back again.
And they'll have to wait.
Again.
The photo
"Up to a dozen die as 2-front battle tests coalition troops" was the sub-headline that shared the front page of the April 7, 2004, edition of USA Today — along with a memorial for the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide, the University of Connecticut's national championship in women's basketball, and a man in Minnesota whose neighbors opposed his plans to open a tire-burning plant.
Plastered across the page was a photograph — which appeared in news publications nationwide in the days to follow– of soldiers crouched in battle in Fallujah.
One soldier among them was standing. Micki was shocked to see it as she logged on to AOL. It was Danny.
It's one of countless pictures spread throughout the Williams household.
Dan and Micki shuffle through the old ones: the infant Danny being spoon-fed; Danny wearing a collared shirt under a sweater at age 4, looking like a little man; Danny at age 8, wearing an engineer's cap and sitting on a horse with his dad in New Mexico; Danny, with a frightened look in his eyes, as he first began to wrestle in high school; then another wrestling picture (with a sticky note attached reading "THE WINNER!") a few years later as his arm is raised in victory.
"You'll go for a month and not hear a thing," Micki says. "Whenever I see him, I tell him, 'Danny, it's like you're reborn.'"
Any child is to his parents more than what he is today: He is what he has been and what his parents always hoped he would be.
The Williamses are proud of what their son has become, but it leaves them living each day without a guide for how to deal with the dread of having a child fighting in a war.
The hope of what would be is a particular burden for Dan and Micki to bear, says the couple's oldest son, Chris Cava, 37, who lives in Atlanta and like his dad is an engineer and a father.
Chris says he knows his parents are struggling with the past, that perhaps they feel they are responsible for their son being in harm's way.
"It's almost like Danny has something to prove to everybody," Chris says. "All those years, the people who said that he wouldn't amount to anything. I think that's what's hardest on my parents."
No politicking
The Williamses moved to Greenville in January from a small steel town near Pittsburgh for Dan's job. The people they speak to here — mostly acquaintances — about having a son in Iraq are quick to learn that the couple isn't comfortable talking about the politics of war while their son is in danger.
Micki stays connected.
She watches cable news tirelessly. She knows the body count from week to week (Chris says he turns the news off when he visits, and his mom will turn it on in the bedroom and turn the volume down).
Daily she visits a Web site, "Honor the Fallen," that keeps track of the most recent casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a short biography and picture of each soldier.
She helps sew "comfort quilts" for families who have lost loved ones in war, and she's hooking up with an Upstate discussion group, Blue Star Mothers of America, to share and seek comfort from others who are dealing with the same worries.
Dan tries to stay disconnected, except for the pictures of his son and a voice mail message he saves on his cell phone. Dan missed the call when Danny phoned from Kuwait last March to tell him he was 45 minutes away from heading into Iraq. The message, in its placid brevity, is reminiscent of a teenager checking in past his curfew.
Dan doesn't sleep much. His wife regularly finds him sitting on the living room couch in the dark. His nighttime is his son's daytime.
At work, he says, panic will inexplicably wash over him. He doesn't know if his son is in danger, or, for that matter, playing football in the sand with comrades.
Micki wonders if she's too connected; Dan sometimes is concerned that he's not connected enough.
In the end, along with their love and worry and pride for their son, they share a disquieting emotion beyond fear and doubt.
Guilt.
Guilt over the relief they feel when they see the reports and learn that their son isn't among the soldiers killed today, relief that he isn't another Internet picture that makes Micki "feel like I'm just clicking on this kid."
"At first you're relieved," Dan says. "You get that 30 seconds of relief, then comes that time of knowing what a family must be going through."
As much as they might worry about whether they are connected too much or too little, this journey of uncertainty has formed a powerful kinship — not just between the couple but with the families they've never met who must walk the same path.
Those who love what they fear to lose.
Those who fear the knock on the door.
"When our son wasn't in the war, they were just numbers," Dan says. "You feel guilty even saying that. Now, no matter where he is, even when he comes back, that has changed."
