thedrifter
05-14-06, 09:33 AM
Some mothers can only wait and pray
Sunday, May 14, 2006
By TOM TRONCONE
STAFF WRITER
The Mother's Day card arrived in Joan Cigolini's mailbox Wednesday. She'll show the card to visitors, but the words written inside are for her alone.
The card, flown halfway across the globe to Washington Township from Afghanistan, is too personal.
Cigolini won't have a Mother's Day visit from her son today. Richard Vander Clute wasn't home for Easter either, or for her 74th birthday in February. The family hopes he'll be home for her 75th, but that's not a certainty.
Vander Clute mailed the card a little early this year. He didn't really have a choice. It takes a little longer for a card to arrive from Afghanistan than, say, from Butler. But it got here.
"It was beautiful," Cigolini said. "It was great to receive it from him."
Still, she wishes Vander Clute could hand deliver it. That would mean he's home, that he's out of harm's way, that he's back behind his desk at the Bergen County Police Department and back home with his wife, Debbie, in their pretty Mahwah split-level.
"I'll just be glad when all these guys get home and this war business is over," she said.
Vander Clute, a sergeant with the county police, spent 28 years in the National Guard, hoping to be activated. At age 48 and with nearly three decades of police experience, he finally got his chance when the Army activated his Guard unit in 2005. He left home just days after Christmas, the first in a line of bittersweet holidays for Cigolini.
"When I was a kid, I couldn't decide what I wanted to do -- be a police officer or be a soldier," Vander Clute said shortly before his deployment. "Now, I have the opportunity to do both."
Vander Clute had plenty of reminders to send a card to his mom. One of his duties in Afghanistan is making sure the mail gets through, a function of the 50th Personnel Services Battalion of which Vander Clute, a command sergeant major, is second in command.
"He sent out the Mother's Day cards for the deployed soldiers," Debbie Vander Clute said as she thumbed through a three-inch stack of greeting cards. She sends a different one each week to her husband.
Some are funny. Some are sentimental. Some are a bit blue. But mostly the husband and wife communicate through instant messaging.
Cigolini, too, has learned e-mail basics and looks forward to receiving the missives from her son on the computer.
Experts say the use of electronic communications during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is giving soldiers unprecedented access to their families.
"Not only just IM, but video," said Vince Patton, director of community outreach for military.com and a 30-year military veteran. "It's much more upfront than ever before."
But, Patton said, it's a double-edged sword.
"It helps the separation," Patton said. "But it also adds to the loneliness. You have the ability to talk to someone right away, but it adds to the feeling of being detached."
Vander Clute is among a shrinking number of law enforcement personnel whose units are still deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
When the United States invaded Iraq, dozens of North Jersey cops on military reserve were activated and shipped overseas. During the past year, they've been returning to their lives, to their families and to their wives, husbands, fathers and mothers.
Like many reservists, they put their careers and comfortable lives on hold. They bade goodbye to their loved ones and hopped military flights to hostile lands far, far away.
There's Priscilla Sanchez, Jeffrey Lee, Genaro Haywood, Christopher Rice, Guy Perez, Anthony Rodriguez, Walt Matthews, Colin Congleton, and many like them who've returned from duty.
Still, some remain in war zones, officers such as Michael Rios and Alexander Zamora from the Passaic County Sheriff's Department. Others, like Cliffside Park police Sgt. J.D. York, have left their departments and are awaiting deployment.
"For mothers on Mother's Day, this is a loss, it's a separation," said Caroline Clauss-Ehlers, an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Rutgers' Graduate School of Education. "It's also a potential loss. The possibility of losing a child."
Overall, about 6,000 New Jersey National Guard members have been sent overseas. Last year, the Teaneck-based 50th Main Support Battalion and its 900 members returned from Iraq, a trend that Patton of military.com said is being repeated nationwide.
"I'm lucky, because I came back completely healthy," said Diane Armbruster, a detective with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. "I know there are soldiers that came back missing legs or with burns across their body, and they can't just get back into their normal lives. So I'm very lucky."
Armbruster, 34, missed last Mother's Day. She spent it processing personnel records, including casualty reports, at a forward base in Tikrit, Iraq.
Some of the reports were for medals to be pinned on the chests of deserving soldiers. Medals their moms and dads could brag about at work. Others helped send home news that broke parents' hearts and changed their lives forever.
Armbruster is typical of most New Jersey police officers who've come back from what her father, George, calls "the big sandbox." So is 24-year-old Thomas Solimando.
More than just returning to the careers they put on hold and, in Solimando's case, to the fiancee he has since married, they're coming back with a new appreciation for their own lives.
"You think of the things you used to complain about," said Solimando, an officer with the Bergen County Sheriff's Department who was a Marine MP in Iraq.
Armbruster also is back at work with a new appreciation for the small things in life -- special Sundays in May and shopping malls -- that were once taken for granted.
Solimando and Armbruster communicated with their parents via e-mail. But they also penned an occasional card or letter.
"She sent me a Mother's Day card, and she was thinking about me," Alice Armbruster said.
Alice Armbruster still appears uncomfortable talking about the nearly two years her daughter spent away from home. Though mostly on desk duty while in Iraq, Armbruster was close to the fighting -- including the time a car bomb blew out windows in her building.
Her father, on the other hand, beams when he talks about the Bergenfield High School graduate's service to her country.
Solimando enlisted in the Marines right out of Don Bosco Prep High School. His mother, Katherine, recalls a military recruiter attending his graduation ceremony.
He had only a few months on the job before he shipped out. But before Solimando, now 24, left for Iraq in August 2004, he proposed to his girlfriend, and they remained engaged while he was away. He's returned, is back at work and now married.
"I couldn't watch the news. I dreaded any doorbell ringing," Katherine Solimando said. "I prayed for him a lot. I tried to keep positive thoughts."
Last Sunday, Solimando took part in a final drill with his Marine reserve unit.
Today, he'll celebrate Mother's Day.
E-mail: troncone@northjersey.com
Ellie
Sunday, May 14, 2006
By TOM TRONCONE
STAFF WRITER
The Mother's Day card arrived in Joan Cigolini's mailbox Wednesday. She'll show the card to visitors, but the words written inside are for her alone.
The card, flown halfway across the globe to Washington Township from Afghanistan, is too personal.
Cigolini won't have a Mother's Day visit from her son today. Richard Vander Clute wasn't home for Easter either, or for her 74th birthday in February. The family hopes he'll be home for her 75th, but that's not a certainty.
Vander Clute mailed the card a little early this year. He didn't really have a choice. It takes a little longer for a card to arrive from Afghanistan than, say, from Butler. But it got here.
"It was beautiful," Cigolini said. "It was great to receive it from him."
Still, she wishes Vander Clute could hand deliver it. That would mean he's home, that he's out of harm's way, that he's back behind his desk at the Bergen County Police Department and back home with his wife, Debbie, in their pretty Mahwah split-level.
"I'll just be glad when all these guys get home and this war business is over," she said.
Vander Clute, a sergeant with the county police, spent 28 years in the National Guard, hoping to be activated. At age 48 and with nearly three decades of police experience, he finally got his chance when the Army activated his Guard unit in 2005. He left home just days after Christmas, the first in a line of bittersweet holidays for Cigolini.
"When I was a kid, I couldn't decide what I wanted to do -- be a police officer or be a soldier," Vander Clute said shortly before his deployment. "Now, I have the opportunity to do both."
Vander Clute had plenty of reminders to send a card to his mom. One of his duties in Afghanistan is making sure the mail gets through, a function of the 50th Personnel Services Battalion of which Vander Clute, a command sergeant major, is second in command.
"He sent out the Mother's Day cards for the deployed soldiers," Debbie Vander Clute said as she thumbed through a three-inch stack of greeting cards. She sends a different one each week to her husband.
Some are funny. Some are sentimental. Some are a bit blue. But mostly the husband and wife communicate through instant messaging.
Cigolini, too, has learned e-mail basics and looks forward to receiving the missives from her son on the computer.
Experts say the use of electronic communications during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is giving soldiers unprecedented access to their families.
"Not only just IM, but video," said Vince Patton, director of community outreach for military.com and a 30-year military veteran. "It's much more upfront than ever before."
But, Patton said, it's a double-edged sword.
"It helps the separation," Patton said. "But it also adds to the loneliness. You have the ability to talk to someone right away, but it adds to the feeling of being detached."
Vander Clute is among a shrinking number of law enforcement personnel whose units are still deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
When the United States invaded Iraq, dozens of North Jersey cops on military reserve were activated and shipped overseas. During the past year, they've been returning to their lives, to their families and to their wives, husbands, fathers and mothers.
Like many reservists, they put their careers and comfortable lives on hold. They bade goodbye to their loved ones and hopped military flights to hostile lands far, far away.
There's Priscilla Sanchez, Jeffrey Lee, Genaro Haywood, Christopher Rice, Guy Perez, Anthony Rodriguez, Walt Matthews, Colin Congleton, and many like them who've returned from duty.
Still, some remain in war zones, officers such as Michael Rios and Alexander Zamora from the Passaic County Sheriff's Department. Others, like Cliffside Park police Sgt. J.D. York, have left their departments and are awaiting deployment.
"For mothers on Mother's Day, this is a loss, it's a separation," said Caroline Clauss-Ehlers, an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Rutgers' Graduate School of Education. "It's also a potential loss. The possibility of losing a child."
Overall, about 6,000 New Jersey National Guard members have been sent overseas. Last year, the Teaneck-based 50th Main Support Battalion and its 900 members returned from Iraq, a trend that Patton of military.com said is being repeated nationwide.
"I'm lucky, because I came back completely healthy," said Diane Armbruster, a detective with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. "I know there are soldiers that came back missing legs or with burns across their body, and they can't just get back into their normal lives. So I'm very lucky."
Armbruster, 34, missed last Mother's Day. She spent it processing personnel records, including casualty reports, at a forward base in Tikrit, Iraq.
Some of the reports were for medals to be pinned on the chests of deserving soldiers. Medals their moms and dads could brag about at work. Others helped send home news that broke parents' hearts and changed their lives forever.
Armbruster is typical of most New Jersey police officers who've come back from what her father, George, calls "the big sandbox." So is 24-year-old Thomas Solimando.
More than just returning to the careers they put on hold and, in Solimando's case, to the fiancee he has since married, they're coming back with a new appreciation for their own lives.
"You think of the things you used to complain about," said Solimando, an officer with the Bergen County Sheriff's Department who was a Marine MP in Iraq.
Armbruster also is back at work with a new appreciation for the small things in life -- special Sundays in May and shopping malls -- that were once taken for granted.
Solimando and Armbruster communicated with their parents via e-mail. But they also penned an occasional card or letter.
"She sent me a Mother's Day card, and she was thinking about me," Alice Armbruster said.
Alice Armbruster still appears uncomfortable talking about the nearly two years her daughter spent away from home. Though mostly on desk duty while in Iraq, Armbruster was close to the fighting -- including the time a car bomb blew out windows in her building.
Her father, on the other hand, beams when he talks about the Bergenfield High School graduate's service to her country.
Solimando enlisted in the Marines right out of Don Bosco Prep High School. His mother, Katherine, recalls a military recruiter attending his graduation ceremony.
He had only a few months on the job before he shipped out. But before Solimando, now 24, left for Iraq in August 2004, he proposed to his girlfriend, and they remained engaged while he was away. He's returned, is back at work and now married.
"I couldn't watch the news. I dreaded any doorbell ringing," Katherine Solimando said. "I prayed for him a lot. I tried to keep positive thoughts."
Last Sunday, Solimando took part in a final drill with his Marine reserve unit.
Today, he'll celebrate Mother's Day.
E-mail: troncone@northjersey.com
Ellie