What the Birthday Boy Wants: A War?

Step out of your life and into someone else's for a moment. When an 8-year-old wants to go to war, what's a mother to do? An occasional Page Three feature.

When my son was about to turn 8, he announced that he wanted a World War II birthday party. More specifically, he wanted to reenact the paratrooper drop into Normandy on D-Day, just like he'd seen on the HBO series he watched with his dad, over my objections, called "Band of Brothers."

Dad said yes, then left town for a month. That left me, with my unease about little boys and their love of weapons, to plan the war. We got Army-green paper plates, plastic canteens and helmets and camouflage invitations with "Top Secret" emblazoned on the front. Then my son, in his third-grade scrawl, wrote across the top of each, "Bring your gun."

My son has always loved war, from the time he started writing about "The Silver War" in his first-grade journal. He spends hours playing spies and war with his buddy Colby, each taking turns dying. At night, before drifting off to sleep, he's wondered aloud sleepily, "I wonder why the Army stopped using the bazooka after World War II."

My husband, who grew up with three brothers, said this obsession is normal. He pooh-poohed my attempt to ban weapons in the house, saying his favorite toy growing up was a plastic Thompson submachine gun.

I don't get it.

And I worried that the mothers of the kids getting these camo invitations wouldn't get it, either.

So I began making calls.

How do you explain to your neighbors in Alexandria that you're hosting a war party? More, why are you hosting a war party? I wasn't sure myself. I only knew that Liam had his heart set on it.

One mother said no right away. "We're trying to get him away from guns."

Others were wary. I assured them that the Germans would be an imaginary enemy. We'd have boot camp, a map-finding activity -- granted, for a sniper's nest, ammo dump and secret war plans -- and have them jump off picnic tables for the parachute drop.

I promised it would be an, uh, "educational experience." I had Liam write a short "Road to D-Day" history that he would read to his troops in the ratline. We wrote up the military alphabet, cleaned up the words to the airborne infantry song, downloaded Glenn Miller tunes to play in the mess hall and even printed out a program for the party.

One mother worried that her daughter would be left out. No, no, I assured her, she was going to be a medic, and a friend was building a cool field hospital and ripping up sheets for bandages.

"In that case," she said, "I'll bring the blood."

The party was a raging success, down to the "beer" bottles of root beer for Easy Company. The boys all brought their guns, some they'd made out of paper towel tubes or cardboard. And, perhaps not surprisingly, it was the fathers who stayed.

-- Brigid Schulte, staff writer