thedrifter
10-26-07, 11:17 AM
WAR TORN: Doubt, despair circle above family as marine serves tour of duty in Iraq
Jackie Leatherman
October 25, 2007 - 10:14PM
Monitor, TX
Kim Baker knew something was wrong with her second, and youngest, child.
But she couldn’t figure out what it was — until he hung up the phone with his father one February day and made a comment that blew her out of the water.
“Calvin said ‘Daddy is not dead, yet.’ I was stunned. Calvin thought when you went to Iraq, you died.”
Each day, hundreds of thousands of families across the nation whose loved ones have been deployed to the war in Iraq try to cope with knowing their service member may not come back home alive or whole.
In the case of U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Paul Baker’s family, coping with deployment has pushed his parents, William and Anita Baker of Pharr, to begin questioning the federal administration — after a long history of their family serving in the military.
It has forced 7-year-old Calvin — more than 1,600 miles away in North Carolina, where Baker is stationed at Camp Lejeune — to come to terms with his father’s absence and struggle to realize not every military member dies when they are deployed overseas.
It has made 15-year-old Kayla assume more responsibility at home and help out more around the house.
And it has made Baker’s wife, Kim, build a protective façade, serving as the strength that holds her family together while silently suffering and longing for her husband to come home.
As for Baker — after working 18 to 20 hours a day coordinating the safe movement of hundreds of Marines in Fallujah, the 43-year-old military officer has his dreams to get him through each night.
William and Anita Baker — the parents
Evidence of William and Anita Baker’s military blood line and patriotism is evident throughout their home in Pharr. He says there is a plaque bearing the Baker name in the Alamo.
He served in the U.S. Army for 30 years. And his three sons followed his footsteps.
The oldest, Joe, retired from the U.S. Air Force before his death last year.
The middle-born, John, served four years in the U.S. Navy.
Paul, the youngest, enlisted in the Marines in 1990. Family members on both sides of William and Anita’s tree have served in one military branch or another.
Paul, though, is the only child who has been to a combat zone. He coordinates Marine troops’ movement from one location to another by organizing the timing, route, vehicles, number of Marines and what supplies and gear to transport. He deployed Feb. 1 and is expected to return Feb. 15.
“It’s kind of worrisome because it is worse than other wars,” said William, who retired to the Rio Grande Valley with his wife 10 years ago.
“There are a lot of mixed emotions. We’ve always been patriotic, but it seems like now there (are questions) about that … this conflict is so debatable. What do we get out of this war? … I suppose I’ve come to an old age where you become more opinioned.”
Anita — well, she prays more.
“It takes your breath away to think about the dangers of it,” she said.
They have talked to their son, whom they raised in Oklahoma, on the phone five times in the last nine months. They rely on Kim’s nearly weekly reports of their son’s temporary life in a battle zone.
Kim Baker — the wife
In February, when Paul left for Iraq, Kim realized she needed to quit her job as an R.N. to provide more family support for Calvin and Kayla during their father’s deployment.
Listening to Kim talk over the phone from North Carolina, her care and strength for her family is obvious.
But the tears are unstoppable.
“He is my husband and I miss him,” she said crying softly. “I wish he was home. I know that he is safe and he will eventually come home, so I keep going.”
Kim has learned to make family decisions on her own, with ease. And she could probably start her own shuttle service, she keep so busy driving her children to their after-school activities.
With each passing day, Kim’s “honey-do” list gets slightly longer, though. She knows her husband loves to work around the house; it’s his relaxation.
By the sounds of it, he’ll have plenty of R&R when he returns.
Lt. Col. Paul Baker — the Marine, father, son
Paul said he didn’t want to miss the dance, so to speak.
“You definitely need to (go to Iraq) as a Marine perspective,” he said during a phone
interview from the war-torn country. “The Marine has you thinking one way and the family has you thinking another way.”
He said he works 18 to 20 hours a day at a construction site, in an infrastructure the size of a contractor’s trailer. He said the temperatures have slowly been dropping from their peak of around 120 degrees to a cool 98.
E-mails from his family give him brief mental breaks throughout the day — breaks from coordinating the safety of hundreds of lives as they travel from point A to point B in a war zone.
The hardest part for Paul is missing Kayla’s track meets and Calvin’s soccer games.
But at night, during the few hours of sleeps he does get, he is able to drift away from the lives at stake under his control and dream of what will bring him joy: retirement. He is eligible to retire in three years.
When asked what gets him through his service overseas, the answer is quick:
“Nine times out of 10 (it’s) where are we going to retire … that gets me to a happy place.“No, we haven’t narrowed it down. We are kind of looking into the eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina area.”
____
Jackie Leatherman covers Hidalgo County and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4424.
Ellie
Jackie Leatherman
October 25, 2007 - 10:14PM
Monitor, TX
Kim Baker knew something was wrong with her second, and youngest, child.
But she couldn’t figure out what it was — until he hung up the phone with his father one February day and made a comment that blew her out of the water.
“Calvin said ‘Daddy is not dead, yet.’ I was stunned. Calvin thought when you went to Iraq, you died.”
Each day, hundreds of thousands of families across the nation whose loved ones have been deployed to the war in Iraq try to cope with knowing their service member may not come back home alive or whole.
In the case of U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Paul Baker’s family, coping with deployment has pushed his parents, William and Anita Baker of Pharr, to begin questioning the federal administration — after a long history of their family serving in the military.
It has forced 7-year-old Calvin — more than 1,600 miles away in North Carolina, where Baker is stationed at Camp Lejeune — to come to terms with his father’s absence and struggle to realize not every military member dies when they are deployed overseas.
It has made 15-year-old Kayla assume more responsibility at home and help out more around the house.
And it has made Baker’s wife, Kim, build a protective façade, serving as the strength that holds her family together while silently suffering and longing for her husband to come home.
As for Baker — after working 18 to 20 hours a day coordinating the safe movement of hundreds of Marines in Fallujah, the 43-year-old military officer has his dreams to get him through each night.
William and Anita Baker — the parents
Evidence of William and Anita Baker’s military blood line and patriotism is evident throughout their home in Pharr. He says there is a plaque bearing the Baker name in the Alamo.
He served in the U.S. Army for 30 years. And his three sons followed his footsteps.
The oldest, Joe, retired from the U.S. Air Force before his death last year.
The middle-born, John, served four years in the U.S. Navy.
Paul, the youngest, enlisted in the Marines in 1990. Family members on both sides of William and Anita’s tree have served in one military branch or another.
Paul, though, is the only child who has been to a combat zone. He coordinates Marine troops’ movement from one location to another by organizing the timing, route, vehicles, number of Marines and what supplies and gear to transport. He deployed Feb. 1 and is expected to return Feb. 15.
“It’s kind of worrisome because it is worse than other wars,” said William, who retired to the Rio Grande Valley with his wife 10 years ago.
“There are a lot of mixed emotions. We’ve always been patriotic, but it seems like now there (are questions) about that … this conflict is so debatable. What do we get out of this war? … I suppose I’ve come to an old age where you become more opinioned.”
Anita — well, she prays more.
“It takes your breath away to think about the dangers of it,” she said.
They have talked to their son, whom they raised in Oklahoma, on the phone five times in the last nine months. They rely on Kim’s nearly weekly reports of their son’s temporary life in a battle zone.
Kim Baker — the wife
In February, when Paul left for Iraq, Kim realized she needed to quit her job as an R.N. to provide more family support for Calvin and Kayla during their father’s deployment.
Listening to Kim talk over the phone from North Carolina, her care and strength for her family is obvious.
But the tears are unstoppable.
“He is my husband and I miss him,” she said crying softly. “I wish he was home. I know that he is safe and he will eventually come home, so I keep going.”
Kim has learned to make family decisions on her own, with ease. And she could probably start her own shuttle service, she keep so busy driving her children to their after-school activities.
With each passing day, Kim’s “honey-do” list gets slightly longer, though. She knows her husband loves to work around the house; it’s his relaxation.
By the sounds of it, he’ll have plenty of R&R when he returns.
Lt. Col. Paul Baker — the Marine, father, son
Paul said he didn’t want to miss the dance, so to speak.
“You definitely need to (go to Iraq) as a Marine perspective,” he said during a phone
interview from the war-torn country. “The Marine has you thinking one way and the family has you thinking another way.”
He said he works 18 to 20 hours a day at a construction site, in an infrastructure the size of a contractor’s trailer. He said the temperatures have slowly been dropping from their peak of around 120 degrees to a cool 98.
E-mails from his family give him brief mental breaks throughout the day — breaks from coordinating the safety of hundreds of lives as they travel from point A to point B in a war zone.
The hardest part for Paul is missing Kayla’s track meets and Calvin’s soccer games.
But at night, during the few hours of sleeps he does get, he is able to drift away from the lives at stake under his control and dream of what will bring him joy: retirement. He is eligible to retire in three years.
When asked what gets him through his service overseas, the answer is quick:
“Nine times out of 10 (it’s) where are we going to retire … that gets me to a happy place.“No, we haven’t narrowed it down. We are kind of looking into the eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina area.”
____
Jackie Leatherman covers Hidalgo County and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4424.
Ellie