Holding My Breath Before Knowing

Proud Gold Star Mother of Sgt. First Class Kristoffer Domeij

The first casualty of war is not a body. It’s the breath held too long by a parent of a soldier deployed to war.

Every time the news breaks, as a Gold Star mom, I think about the families who don’t yet know they are about to receive “the news.” Without warning, that shocking numbness divides life into “before” and “after.”

Before I knew the details, before I knew which jet, which pilot, which stretch of sky, my body reacted. My stomach dropped. Hard.

Then I heard that a U.S. F-15 fighter jet and an A-10 Warthog, that winged Avenger cannon, were shot down in hostile territory.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

All soldiers in danger of death or capture become a Gold Star Mother’s son.

My gut twisted. My breath shifted shallow. I logged onto my computer and refreshed the news. Again. And again. Each update felt like holding my breath underwater, waiting to hear, “Are my sons safe?”

When I learned one pilot was rescued, my body released tension’s grip, all at once. A deep, involuntary sigh escaped. My shoulders dropped. My jaw unclenched. Relief moved through me like warmth returning to numb fingers.

And then came the next report.

Officials said they “had heard” from the “back seater,” the other downed crewman. Location unknown.

Relief vanished.

My muscles locked tighter than before, as if my body had learned not to trust release. Someone’s son is still out there.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

My thoughts spiraled to what capture might mean, and they did not stay abstract. My dread locked onto the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the force known by reputation and record, by accounts of torture, executions, and punishments inflicted on their own people. My mind snagged on what I’d read about women being shot in the “right” eye as lethal punishment for “being seen.” I thought about the Basij battalions, about how distorted belief turns something as human as the “female gaze” into a crime. I didn’t want to imagine it, but my mind insisted. What happens to a prisoner of war when captured by a regime that has already decided who deserves to suffer their vengeance?

I prayed and hoped with every cell of my body. That someone, somewhere, moved fast enough. That the Weapons Systems Officer would be hidden. Protected. That our amazing Special Ops teams reached someone’s precious son first.

My thoughts shifted. I wondered about Iranian civilians. Would they risk their lives to help a stranger? Would the locals choose danger out of conscience, compassion, or a quiet defiance against their own oppressors? Grief tangled with my fear for those snared in the armed hunters’ web: the hunted, and the locals caught in the crossfire.

Memories embedded in my brain refused to stay quiet. I checked the news again. And again. When thousands of too-young-to-die Marines stand ready for their orders, something in me reacts before thought forms. My body knows this story.

I recall what it means to wait for orders that change everything. Knowing the ground beneath our sons’ feet may soon become a battlefield. I think about parents who don’t yet know they’re about to start holding their breath after disaster disrupts life as they knew it.

The Iranians are smart. Calculated. They know their coordinates. They know exactly where their vulnerable strike lists lie.

And I wonder: Are sly masterminds lying in wait in their secret missile cities? Holding back devastating mystery munitions? Waiting for the moment boots hit the ground, when all bets are off? For the instant brave bodies cluster together? When the cost will be highest and grief will be greatest?

Unsolicited thoughts and the effort to breathe exhaust my emotional energy.

Somewhere, parents move through ordinary sounds: the clink of dishes in a sink, the low rush of bath water, a drawer closes softly. A house settles. A clock ticks a little too loudly. Time shifts its weight toward them, though all they hear is the familiar rhythm of a normal evening.

A knock.

A sentence inches closer: “May I come in?” Those words belong to families who then hear the inconceivable, “I’m sorry to inform you…”

Long before “the news” arrives, dread dangles dire before confirmation.

Before names are spoken out loud or published by the media.

Before their names become permanently engraved in marble.

Traumatic grief inherits what war has always taken, not with explosions, but with what our hearts fear most.

The names we pray we will never hear.

The death of a child. A parent. A spouse. A sibling. A person our hearts love.

I think about the families who don’t yet know they’re about to start holding their breath.

That thought hovers like a dark cloud, a plume of untamed fire and smoke exploding into the heavens, turning the air in my lungs to ash. My inner screams yearn for peace. My groanings roar, known only to the Lord of Hosts, Jehovah Tz’vaot, the Commanding General over heaven and earth, and over every earthly and heavenly army. Human armies rely on numbers, ammunition, calculated coordinates, and military strategy.

Jehovah Tz’vaot operates differently: “Not by [wealth or military] might nor by [human] power, but by My Spirit [Ruach, a tangible, unseen, undeniable force],” says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)

War doesn’t arrive all at once. It arrives in waves: news alerts, rumors, red herrings, fabricated conspiracies. Each distraction tightens the body a little more, until even waiting for evidence feels like its own kind of war.

My thoughts carry me only so far. So I lay my battle before Jehovah Tz’vaot: Defender of the vulnerable. Deployer of unseen protection. Righter of wrongs. No conflict or power unfolds outside His sovereign command.

When the emotional toll of war suspends my breath in terror, God exhales. His breath renews me, breathing where I cannot, until I catch my breath again.

_____________________________

Scoti serves as vice president and media liaison for the Pikes Peak Chapter of American Gold Star Mothers and is publisher at Blackside Publishing. She is the mother of Army Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Domeij, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, who was killed in action on October 22, 2011, during his 14th deployment to Afghanistan, and she has worked as an editor and writer for multiple publishers. Her work is grounded in Gold Star family experience, remembrance, and military community life. For The Havok Journal, her essays often address grief, motherhood, service, and the lasting effects of war on families.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.