A grieving mother's message to the NFL

Dear NFL:

I’ve been sitting here for the last year listening to this debate over standing for the national anthem. I am filled with such anger, sadness and grief that I haven’t been able to talk about it. I believe for the well-being of my grandchildren, I must speak up now. I hope you can hear my words with an open heart.

My son-in-law is Jeremy J. Armstrong. He came home from Afghanistan with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, 100 percent disabled. He was in the U.S. Army and he loved his country. He had a wife, my daughter, and three small children. He was 29 years old when he passed away from his injuries last year.

When my son came home, he was a kid I didn’t recognize. I would sit with him night after night while he told me war stories. They haunted him. He was on the front lines, the first out in the Buffalo doing route clearance. He had been blown up three times. The last time was the one that caused the traumatic brain injury. He told me that every time he was asked to go on a mission he would sit in his Buffalo ready to leave his FOB and every bone in his body was screaming at him to not leave, to stay there in the semi-safety of his unit. He told me how he would have to remind himself of all the reasons that he was doing this: his love for his country, his neighbors and most of all his family, his wife and his children. He wanted them to be safe. This is why he joined the Army — to protect his country. That was the only thing that physically allowed him to leave his FOB and complete his mission in a country where he knew he was going to be shot at every day.

When my son came home injured, we sat and watched as our commander-in-chief did little to advance the war on terrorism. The very fight that he sent my son and others to sacrifice everything for. We had to fight with a VA system daily to get my son the medical care that he needed … DAILY!

We sat and watched as my son waited three years for his Purple Heart to come in. When it finally did come through, it was sent to him in a brown box to our post office. Sadly, I have learned that many of our injured soldiers have received their Purple Hearts through the mail. What kind of country sends their wounded warriors their Purple Hearts in the mail? I have seen first-hand the way we treat our injured warriors when they come home and it is nothing short of disgraceful. I’m sad that my son was injured. I’m heartbroken and completely devastated that my son died and I am lost trying to figure out why a country that I love, that I call mine, would treat my son, who gave everything, so disgracefully. It was like a slap in the face to us all.

Our whole family moved to Idaho right after Jeremy died. We found peace in a state that honors their veterans like no other I have been to. There is a wonderful lady here named Theresa Hart, who lost her son in Iraq. She decided to honor him by opening a store to help veterans and their families. On my first meeting with Theresa we sat and cried together for a couple of hours and I told her of my anger. She said something that really changed me. She said, “No, Janice, your son came home to a broken government and a broken VA system, but he came home to a grateful nation!” That helped me more than I could ever say. It helped me separate, in my mind, between the people and the system. Something that I’ve been trying to teach and explain to his children.

Jeremy left behind two little girls, 11 and 8, and a 3-year-old little boy. These children lost their dad, who meant the world to them. To them he was not a soldier; he was their daddy. He was the one who tucked them in at night and read them bedtime stories. They miss him dearly. The older two have had to deal with the anger like the rest of our family because they were old enough to see the way their dad was treated before he died.

But things have been getting better this year. The kids are healing and for the first time in a long time, we have a president who cares about our soldiers and our veterans. We have a president who is willing to finish the mission that their dad and many others sacrifice their life for. We have a president who made sure that their dad didn’t die in vain. When our local VFW learned that my son was never presented his Purple Heart, they along with Sen. Marv Hagedorn had a ceremony and presented it to his wife and children. Our family is healing, and we are trying to find our new normal. After years of losing faith in our country, we are seeing “Old Glory” shining and we understand why Jeremy was willing to die for this great country.

Then one day we wake up and we hear about a football player, on one of the biggest stages in the world, on national television, who is refusing to stand for the national anthem and once again I’m left not knowing what to say to my grandkids. Once again I feel that same slap-in-the-face from Americans. I have three sisters, one sister with brown skin, one sister with black skin, and one sister with white skin. I myself have interracial children. I am not blinded for one second to the racial problems in this country today. But I will not be addressing that in this letter as it has nothing to do with Americans standing for the national anthem and never should. Racial injustice must be addressed in this country, but not on the backs of our soldiers and sure as hell not on the backs of my grandchildren.

The biggest argument I have heard through this whole debate has been people saying, “Well, didn’t your son die for the right for people to protest?” And my answer is this: “Yes, he did.” Our family has always believed in every person’s right to have their voice heard. However, I have two issues with the way this is being done. First, when in exercising our rights, if we trample on the rights of others it makes us hypocrites, and I believe that our fallen heroes have earned the right to be respected and honored. Second, when in exercising our rights we trample on the hearts of innocent grieving children, it just makes us cruel. Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean that you should.

Our family has always been very patriotic. But when you lose somebody you love who has died for their country, it changes the way you see the world. Suddenly all of those freedoms you took for granted, like voting or going to church or a football game, become precious, because you understand that there was blood invested in you having those freedoms.

When our national anthem is sung and our flag is waving and you stand with your hand over your heart it’s precious, because you understand that there was precious blood shed for that flag; my son’s blood was shed for that flag. Haylie, Alyssa and Justin, their daddy, his blood was shed for that flag. And those three little ones, they are watching you. They are growing up without their daddy, watching all of us, every day.

Please, as you get ready to start the new season, please be worthy of their sacrifice.

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Janice Camarena is a resident of Hayden.