There's something surreal about knowing your son's commanding officer in Gaza plays Brawl Stars. It hits you at odd moments - between checking the news and sending care packages, between prayers and sleepless nights. These boys leading our boys into battle are still kids themselves, kids who still play mobile games in their downtime.
Twenty years old, my son carries a weapon and the weight of our nation's survival on his shoulders. It's not just that he's my kid, who only a few short years ago was in third grade, who only recently finished school. Any parent knows this dissonance: of your child being a fully fledged grown up but still feeling that they are really little under it all.
His commander though, is not my kid. Though he is barely older, he carries the responsibility for dozens of lives while probably having a favorite Brawler character he plays between operations.
It's a jarring reminder of just how young they really are - these soldiers we ask to defend our homeland, these children we send to face unimaginable darkness. In another reality, they'd just be college students arguing about video games.
Instead, they coordinate military maneuvers and make life-or-death decisions, knowing that over 800 of their brothers-in-arms have already fallen this year.
Sometimes I wonder if he plays Brawl Stars to remember what normal feels like, this young commander of my son. To grasp at moments of ordinary youth between the extraordinary burdens we've placed upon him. Does he think about power-ups and character upgrades while planning the next day's operations? Does it help him stay connected to the kid he was just months ago?
My son's commander plays Brawl Stars. And somehow, that makes everything about this war both more bearable and more devastating at the same time.