Watching your dad go off to war.

The news came so suddenly. My dad has been in the New Jersey National Guard for a long time, so he had always talked about the possibility of being called up to active duty. But still, I never thought the day would come when I would have to say goodbye to him.

Then one day last May, when I came home from school, my dad took me into the dining room and told me that he might be deployed to Iraq. I was so shocked.

The reality of it all didn't sink in until the summer. By that time, my dad was stationed in Fort Drum, N.Y., with his unit, preparing for the rough journey to come.

I tried to take my mind off it. I wanted to have a normal summer, and in many ways I did. The only thing I regret is that I bottled up all my feelings and surrounded myself with a defense wall so no one would know how scared I felt.

For some reason I didn't want people to know my dad was leaving for Iraq. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me, and I didn't want to seem weak. I don't think anyone else in my school has a parent who's in the National Guard; maybe that's part of why I didn't think they'd understand.

When summer ended, my dad's unit still hadn't been deployed. But he wasn't allowed to come home as often as he wanted to, and Fort Drum is four hours from where we live. His sergeant kept changing the date for their deployment and the amount of time that they would be away. I'm certainly not complaining that their departure was pushed back, but having to say goodbye more than once is really hard, because you never know when the final goodbye is going to come.

In September, my dad, who is 38, fractured his ankle while training and formed a bone spur on his leg. For a while I was hoping that the war would be over by the time his leg was healed, and the stress would be over.

But after about two months his leg got better, and he joined his unit overseas in January. They are currently posted in Iraq.

The last time I saw my dad was just before Christmas, and I didn't realize at the time that it would be my last chance to see him before he left. We have been able to keep in touch via e-mail, and that helps a lot. We don't really talk about what's going on in Iraq. We talk about how he's doing personally and I tell him about things at school.

My friends have been very supportive, and I'm not afraid to talk about it anymore. It's part of my life, and I'm proud to have a courageous soldier as my parent,

Kelley Lawler is a freshman at Moorestown High School in Moorestown, N.J.