Father’s Day

[thedrifter]

Father’s Day
by Oliver North

June 12, 2003
Maybe it’s appropriate that Father’s Day – a secular holiday supported by Calvin Coolidge in 1924 and officially designated as the 3rd Sunday in June by Lyndon Johnson – is so close to Memorial Day. This year, both occasions were observed with tens of thousands of dads absent from their offspring – because they are serving in our armed forces far from home, often in harm’s way. Some of those children and dads have never met each other.

Today, Marine Corps recruiting ads would have the uninitiated believe that the only thing that matters is being a “warrior.” And while that is certainly a crucial ingredient in being a Marine, there is another aspect that pervades all of the military services today – concern for the families of those who are serving.

While I was covering the 5th Marines in Iraq for Fox News, a Sergeant Major approached me after a live broadcast and asked if one of his young corporals could use my satellite phone to call home. “His wife gave birth last night, and he wants to call so she and his new son can hear his voice,” the grizzled veteran of two wars and many gunfights explained. I handed him the phone.

The young Corporal’s new son won’t remember that phone call. But hopefully, in the midst of one of life’s inevitable challenges, the Marine Corporal and his wife will recall that all-too-brief conversation as evidence of a father’s love for the son he wouldn’t hold for months to come.

That’s always a challenge for those in our armed forces – reconciling the willingness to serve our country with the need to be a dad. Today, tens of thousands soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines who are fathers are serving overseas without their families. They serve in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Japan, the Balkans and at sea around the world, defending this country from the threat of terrorism and offering others the hope of freedom. Many, like that young corporal, instead of helping mom, handing out cigars and buying every stuffed animal in the hospital gift shop, will be working 20-hour days and avoiding sniper fire when their child is born. For those fathers, the chance to hold their newborn will have to wait.

When he visited the sailors on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) on May 1, President George W. Bush pointed out that while these sailors were at sea, back home their wives had given birth to 150 babies. That was true at every port hosting a welcoming home ceremony. When the USS Reuben James (FFG 57) and USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) returned to Pearl Harbor, eleven fathers had the opportunity to see their new born children for the first time. At Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, more than 100 sailors disembarked the USS Constellation (CV-64) and met the new addition to their families.

Understanding the importance of a father in a child’s life, the military is trying to relieve some of the stress families experience during long deployments. Programs like United Through Reading help fathers to serve both their country and their family. It may not replace the warm feeling of sitting on daddy’s lap while he reads a bed-time story, but while on board ship, sailors can videotape themselves reading books to their children and ship the tape home.

For the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq keeping the peace and restoring order for the Iraqi people, the hope is that their absence from home will only be temporary. For most of them it will, but Iraq is still a dangerous place. To date, 181 American military personnel have been killed in Iraq, and at least 85 young children – some of them not yet born – lost their fathers during this war.

As President Bush said in his Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery, “Americans like these did not fight for glory, but to fulfill a duty. They did not yearn to be heroes, they yearned to see mom and dad again and to hold their sweethearts and to watch their sons and daughters grow.” These men are called heroes and rightfully so.

But largely forgotten still are the many others who have, and continue, to sacrifice – the children left behind. Birthdays, ballet recitals, their first at-bat in a Little League game are just a few of the important events in a child’s life that are performed or celebrated without the love and guidance from Dad. Their sacrifice is the lonely home whose quiet night is pierced by the sound down the hall of Mom crying herself to sleep. In their teenage years, they go to the movies with their friends only to see their dead father’s courage mocked on the big screen by leftist producers like Oliver Stone. They struggle to save for college, trying yet again to accomplish in their life a goal they know would have made their father proud.

The 1st Battalion of the 181st Field Artillery of the Tennessee Army National Guard is a unique unit. Among its ranks are seven fathers who are serving with their sons. For them, this Father’s Day will be a special one.

As you celebrate with your father today, or when you give him a call on the phone, say a prayer for those children who are marking this day as the first that their father is no longer with them.

Sempers,

Roger


To All Our Father's........

Happy Father's Day..........


This was stated Wed....Honoring Our Dad's.......

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7614

[thedrifter]

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[CAS3]

Wishing all of my brother's a Happy Father's Day.
Hope you are surrounded by your children and /or grandchildren.
Have a wonderful day.
S/F
Colleen

[thedrifter]

Article ran : 06/15/2003
Reason to celebrate on this Father's Day
By MIKE SHERRILL
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Capt. George Nunez spoke to his newborn daughter more than three months before he ever saw her.

He wasn't the only Marine or sailor in that position when the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit returned to Camp Lejeune after an extended deployment. George was one of many troops whose wives gave birth while they were away for nine months, a time that included combat in Iraq.

And with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade set to return later this month, more military dads are returning from Iraq to excited and eager family members.

George, 29, and his wife of seven years, Martie, thought they had the timing worked out.

Had the MEU returned in six months, as expected, George would be home, as he was for the birth of his son Garrett three years earlier.

As the day of his daughter Makenna's birth approached, George was able to call the hospital. Martie was in labor when he made one call.

"I tried to coach her as best I could. She did great," he said.

Martie laughs at the memory - now.

"By the grace of God, he yelled, 'push' and the other folks on the boat yelled 'push,' and I pushed," she said.

Then, George went to the back of the ship to smoke cigars with friends. The Marines would talk about their children and share pictures without trying to seem like they were homesick.

"They wouldn't say it too bluntly that they missed their kids, but we all did," George said.

Almost four months later he was home with Garrett and Martie again - and Makenna for the first time.

Returning fathers may experience an adjustment period with their children, and this is natural, said Dr. Kim Abulsaad, a clinical psychologist in Jacksonville for the last two decades. Families have had to get along without Dad, and children sometimes seem a little distant.

"What we hope for fathers, for military personnel, is not having set expectations (of how the family will act) when they return," Abulsaad said.

Children as young as 6 months begin to distinguish between people they do and don't know, Abulsaad said. Even older children, who know their fathers, may have grown used to his absence. Or children may seem whiny, clingy or hyperactive.

"That takes a while, and then it goes away," Abulsaad said.

Planning before the deployment is the key to an easy reunion. Abulsaad said keeping plenty of pictures, answering the children's questions about Dad's leaving and having as much telephone contact as possible during a deployment are simple examples of ways to keep fathers in the minds of young children.

"A year is nothing to you and me, but to a child of the age of 5, that's 20 percent of his life," Abulsaad said.

Spending time together before and after deployments will strengthen familial bonds, but if a child seems hesitant, Abulsaad said not to force a child into activities "kicking and screaming."

"You take your cues from the child," Abulsaad said. "They're going to test the waters for you."

The Nunez family, like many, has several pictures on the refrigerator, and the couple is planning time together, including a trip to Disney World.

"When I'm home, I like to squeeze in as much quality time as possible," George said.

He also carries one of Garrett's toys, a Buzz Lightyear figure, with him on deployments and sends home pictures of "Buzz around world," Martie said. When he handed it back to his son upon his Memorial Day weekend return, it was like he was really home.

But Makenna presented another challenge.

"My biggest concern was that I hadn't held a newborn in quite some time," George said.

Originally from Hampstead, Martie had family in the area to help her through her pregnancy and George's deployment, but Makenna always cried when Martie's brother held her.

When he arrived home at 3 that afternoon, Martie cautioned her husband to be patient with his daughter.

"By 7 o'clock, she was batting those eyelashes at him at and smiling," Martie said. "She's Daddy's girl all the way."


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Article ran : 06/15/2003
Daddy's home!
By KINEA WHITE
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Editor's note: This is a follow-up to a story that ran in the March 30 edition of Neighbors.


Marine Staff Sgt. Matthew Harris' Father's Day request was simple.

"I don't want anything," the 31-year-old father of three says.

For Matthew, being able to be at home and watch his kids run around the living room and snuggle with his wife, Jackie, at night is all he says he needs.

Matthew was among the thousands of Marines and sailors, that recently returned to Camp Lejeune with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit two weeks ago. For them and their families, the weeks and months away seemed like years, especially during the anxious early days of the war in Iraq.

"I couldn't believe it," Matthew says. "A couple of us guys said we wouldn't believe it until we land on Onslow Beach or W.P.T. Field (aboard Camp Lejeune)."

Jackie agreed.

"I didn't want to get my hopes up," says Jackie, who found out that her husband was going into Iraq on her birthday.

Even 8-year-old Linda says it was hard to believe.

"I wasn't going to believe it until I saw him."

The MEU had set off for a seven-month deployment, but was delayed and sent into Iraq in late March.

On a recent afternoon at the Harrises' home in the Hunters Creek community, 1-year-old Matthew Jr. ran around the living room chasing the cat; 3-year-old Bailey played with her toys on the floor and 8-year-old Linda rocked backed and forth in the recliner. And Jackie was all smiles. In fact, she couldn't stop smiling.

Life is different for the family compared to two months ago when Matthew Sr.'s return from Operation Iraqi Freedom was uncertain.

For the most part, normalcy has now returned.

The Harrises have spent the last two weeks catching up on lost time. Linda and Bailey have had wrestling matches with their father almost every night. They've gone out to eat everyday and have taken daily bike rides.

Even Jackie and Matthew have been out on a date.

"It's been great," they both say.

"At first I felt like I had to tell him everything the first night he was here," Jackie says, "but then I realized he'd be home for awhile."

"Yeah, the kids are like that, too," Matthew added. "They want to do everything in one day."

But Matthew doesn't mind. Since he has been home, Jackie has stepped down from her dual role.

"He's been the sitter," she says. "If I have to run an errand he watches the kids or if I need something he gets it."

Matthew says it took some time to get used to how much the children had changed.

When he left in August, Matthew Jr. was barely crawling.

"Now he's running around being a wild man," Matthew says laughing.

"Bailey and Linda have both become very independent. Linda has gotten taller and I am proud of her for doing good in school while I was gone," he says.

Jackie says having Matthew home has been an adjustment for the kids.

"They're used to asking me for things, so now I'm like you can ask your dad."

It didn't take much time for Matthew to relax and settle back with his family. "Being able to wake up in the morning and listen to the children," he says. "It doesn't feel like I've been gone."

He says it was naturally hard to be away from his family, but he knew that he had a job to do there and that Linda was taking care of the home font.

"I know it was hard on her," he says. "I missed a lot of birthdays and holidays."

"Yeah, it's ironic how they make sure they are home for Father's Day," Jackie says, laughing."


Contact Kinea White at kwhite@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 235.



Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

In Wake of War, Making Do Without Dad
Marine's Family Soldiers On After His Death

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 15, 2003; Page A01


JACKSONVILLE, N.C. -- Janina Bitz drew a long, cleansing breath and stepped deep into the aquamarine tranquility of the baptismal pool. Her husband, she recalls, a muscly Marine with captivating eyes and a boyish smile, parted the water moments later.

They wore aspirant's robes. Modest. Knee-length. White for purity.

Baptisms, by definition, are about beginnings. For Janina and Michael, submitting to the sunken pool at First Christian Church that Sunday morning in 2001 promised a new start for their marriage and their family. It meant washing away the careless indiscretions that had threatened their lives together. It could not be a momentary whim; it had to be a transformation.

"There was too much garbage, too much noise. . . . We wanted to be better people, better influences," Janina says.

On the cool January evening this year when she kissed Michael goodbye, her belly swollen with unborn twins, Janina felt a sense of peace that their transformation was complete. Caleb and Taylor were born six weeks later, and Janina rushed off a picture to Michael, 31, in Iraq.

She had no way of knowing that her newborn children would never meet their father.

She also did not know there were other women just like her all across the United States, others whose children will spend today's commemoration -- and every one after it -- honoring fathers without knowing what it was like to be held by their dads. At least seven widows who were pregnant when their husbands left for Iraq have given birth to eight children, including a set of twins, and six more are due in coming months.

When Bitz's twins were born, her husband, a sergeant with the 2nd Marine Division's 2nd Assault Amphibious Battalion, was making his way through Iraq on a trail that would eventually lead him to Nasiriyah, where his unit was ambushed March 23 by Iraqi forces pretending to surrender. He had always wanted a girl, and he'd also always wanted a little one with blue eyes. The couple's first child, Joshua -- who is 21/2 and so attached to his dad that he sometimes won't eat until a picture of Michael is perched on the table beside him -- has brown eyes.

Janina does not know whether Michael got her pictures before he died in the ambush. But she hopes her husband was able to see for himself that Caleb and Taylor look out at the world through blue eyes, just like their father's.

'Depressed Doesn't Work'


A cleverly scrunched baby blanket can do amazing things. It has to at Trailer Number 8, which is across from a corn patch on Croom Lane, a country road set back in the pines and farms north of Jacksonville.

The blanket holds Taylor's bottle while Janina, 25, chases Joshua past the plastic sheeting, insulation and duct tape that seal the trailer's drafty back doors. Taylor's eyes roll back contentedly, oblivious to the commotion; she is nearing sleep. She inherited Janina's prominent nose, not "the little button" nose of her father. She is beautiful.

The rocking baby seat minds Caleb. He has an utterly composed way of looking people right in the eye. He got his dad's cute, "wing nut" ears. Already he seems like a little man.

For a moment, all is calm. Joshua scratches inky squiggles on his little, orange notebook. Janina tosses frozen fish sticks into the oven. Then Joshua says something. His mom does not hear him at first, so he says it again, louder.

"Where's Dad?"

It has been only seven weeks since Janina buried her husband, the man she calls her "brother in Christ," but she answers with a steady voice lyrically inflected by her Australian roots:

"He's in heaven, baby. Daddy watches over you."

She received the news March 24. Marines, gentle, soft-spoken men in a little, green truck, drove up to her house to tell her Michael was gone.

Suddenly, she was the "Tassie War Widow," a nod from the Australian press to her native state of Tasmania. Days later, she found herself sitting with the president and the first lady, who had flown to Camp Lejeune to console families of the dead. Laura Bush held Caleb, but Joshua was more interested in the looming Secret Service agents.

Offers of help started coming. Kindly retired Marines checked on her, a bank donated diapers, and the "Fallen Patriot Fund," established by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, gave her its first grant of $12,000. Sometimes she was hesitant; it is not in the nature of this independent, adventurous, confident woman to accept help.

"It was weird," she says.

Acquaintances stop her at the store, at the military base, on the street. Some express shock that she is really one of those wives, the ones who will raise children alone.

"Why would you think I would lie about that?" she wonders. "Is it because I'm not here sobbing? I don't need to put on a public show."

But little things -- the essence of a man wearing Michael's favorite cologne, for instance -- can reduce her to tears, says her mother, Maree Heron, who flew from Australia to Jacksonville to help with the twins' birth and stayed until late last month because of Michael's death. For all Janina's resiliency, there are unbearable moments, such as the one-year anniversary in May of the day she and Michael renewed their wedding vows.

"All those things I kept inside came out: Who wants to take on a widow with three screaming children? Will I be loved again? Will my children have a daddy?"

Sometimes she gets by with dark humor. When friends ask how she has slimmed down so quickly after giving birth to twins, she says, "I lost my husband."

She doesn't want her kids to see a mushy, gushy mom. Michael would have wanted her to get on with life. Be happy.

"Depressed doesn't work with three children," she says, emphasizing her point with her flashing, bright-hazel eyes. "I lost my husband -- I didn't lose my common sense or my ability to live."

Bedlam, Then Baptism


An inconspicuously arranged row of photo albums lines the shelf next to Janina's television, above the stacks of soldier movies: "Saving Private Ryan," "We Were Soldiers," "Windtalkers." There are pictures of Michael and Janina singing at karaoke bars, clowning with friends at the beach, cuddling Joshua.

One of the earliest shows a teenaged Michael dressed in a martial arts robe and nimbly doing the splits while balancing on two chairs, just like his hero, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Growing up in Ventura, Calif., after bouncing across four Western states with his thrice-divorced mother, Bitz was always a daredevil, rigging up impossible skateboard and bicycle stunts. His teenage years were rocky, his mother, Donna Bellman, says. But there was always a sweetness about him. He would send her flowers for no reason and spruce up the kitchen.

"What teenage boy would clean the oven?" she asks from her home in Ventura.

Since Michael's death, relations have been strained between Janina and her mother-in-law. This is not uncommon. The soldier can act as a bridge between his parents and his wife, but when he is gone and the link with grandchildren seems less certain, the bridge can fall.

Bellman had encouraged her son to join the military when he was 23, older than most new recruits. He had to do something, she says: His life was going nowhere. He had married Teresa, a shy girl he met while working at a pizza restaurant, and they had a child named Christian, who is now 7.

When Michael's marriage foundered, he placed an ad with an online dating service, and Janina spotted it. She was working as an au pair for a Navy family outside San Diego, her second au pair job since leaving Australia.

The romance blossomed quickly, and a justice of the peace married them.

She followed him to Arkansas, where he was stationed as a Marine recruiter. They were young, a little wild and having a blast. She started dancing at a topless place in Little Rock called Foxy's, where they had gone together. This became work she did off and on for the next year or so, until Michael returned from a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean. After the couple moved to Jacksonville, the incongruities of their life grew starker.

continued........

[thedrifter]

Janina dreamed of living a solid family life, but she earned wads of dollar bills by whirling seductively at a topless joint called Tobie's, where lonely boys from Camp Lejeune order lap dances on payday. Michael professed devotion to his young wife, but he still caroused with his pals, acting for all the world like an untethered bachelor rather than a husband, a responsible father and a grown-up.

Michael had several affairs, Janina says. She strayed, too. Their marriage frayed to such a point that they needed to take drastic steps to save it. They agreed that the only way -- their last chance -- was to make a commitment to their faith. Religious texts began to fill their shelves. They were baptized. They renewed their marriage vows.

They soon learned that Janina was pregnant with twins. Michael was thrilled, not a bit nervous. Their new world seemed full of possibilities.

But, then again, it still does. A master budgeter, Janina doesn't worry much about money. A tax-free check arrives from the military each month: $948 for her as a surviving spouse, a benefit she can keep while she remains unmarried, and $237 for each of the kids until they are 18, enough income to let her stay at home. There is also a $250,000 military life insurance policy for the children.

Sometimes Janina rides into town in the Suzuki Vitara that she bought for Michael to use when he returned from war. She listens to the Shania Twain song "From This Moment On," the one they played when they renewed their vows last May. There was not much time to find a place for the service, so they had it in the chapel of a funeral home. She returned to the same funeral home to receive Michael's body, sitting alone with his unopened casket and a Wendy's hamburger lunch that she had picked up. She had asked the attendant for a straw and an empty cup so she could feel like Michael was joining her for the meal.

Some days, she checks on the vacant lot in a neat subdivision, within walking distance of three schools, where her new house will rise. She and Michael had talked about owning a home someday, and after he died it just made sense to make their dream a reality.

One day, in one of those rooms that have yet to be built, she'll sit down with Caleb and Taylor. She'll lay out medals and photo albums and newspaper clippings. She'll smile and introduce Caleb and Taylor to the father they never knew.

Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59933-2003Jun14.html?nav=hptop_ts


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

At Least 14 Children Will Never Meet Dad



By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Margot Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 15, 2003; Page A22


LAKE CHARLES, La. -- The front door of the narrow ranch house on Harless Street, at the edge of this oil refining and riverboat gambling town, swings open into a room swallowed up by a queen-size bed. Letricia Bellard's mother converted her parlor into a bedroom because her daughter has come home to stay, carrying a wide-eyed infant named Wilfred Jr. who will never meet his father.

Nearly 1,200 miles to the north, in Des Moines, Paul Oliver and his wife sleep in a partially finished basement so their daughter, Jill Kiehl, can have the upstairs bedroom. Kiehl spends her days tending to a newborn, Nathaniel, and wondering how a stack of medals, pictures and newspaper clippings can acquaint a little boy with a dad who will never hold him.

Kiehl, 21, and Bellard, 20, unknowingly joined a sisterhood of sorts when they gave birth. The wives of at least 13 U.S. servicemen killed during the Iraq war and its aftermath were pregnant when their husbands shipped out. Eight children, including one set of twins, have been born, and six more are due.

These men who will never meet their children represent 7 percent of the 183 U.S. forces killed during the war and its aftermath. Among them is Marine Staff Sgt. Donald C. May Jr., 31, of Richmond, whose wife, Deborah, gave birth May 1 to William Fuller May. Another who will never see his child is Army Pfc. Jesse A. Givens, 34, whose wife, Melissa, gave birth May 29 to Carson Givens, named after Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs, where his father was based.

With an all-volunteer force, the military has far greater percentages of married, enlisted troops than it did during the draft era, when men with children generally were exempted from service and active-duty tours were shorter. The promise of college money, health benefits, pensions and a steady income to raise a family is a powerful recruiting incentive for those seeking a career. The Veterans Benefits Administration has begun paying monthly stipends to the families of at least 91 troops killed in Iraq.

Financially, they may be better off than the families of soldiers killed in other eras. Most will receive the standard $250,000 in life insurance benefits, 25 times the standard policy for those killed in the Vietnam War, which was an amount so small that it was fodder for gallows humor.

Surviving spouses also now get monthly pensions of $948 while they remain unmarried, and their children each get $237 a month until they are 18.

College money motivated Jill Kiehl's husband, Army Spec. James M. Kiehl, 22, a lanky, high-school basketball standout from Comfort, Tex., to enlist, Oliver said.

Letricia Bellard's husband, Army Pfc. Wilfred D. Bellard, 20, was struggling last year with low-paying construction jobs and unrealized dreams of a rap music career when he rattled her by signing up with a recruiter. "Of all the times to join the military, I'm like, 'Why now?' " Letricia remembers saying.

Wilfred graduated from his final training course on Dec. 4, three days before their wedding and nine days before he left for Iraq. Since his death -- he was killed when his vehicle fell into a ravine near Baghdad -- Letricia has stopped driving and seldom leaves her mother's house. She pads about in slippers much of the time.

Friends offer to baby-sit for Wilfred Jr., but Letricia cannot bear to be without him. Each night, Letricia's mother, Semoyen Jackson, warns her against sleeping in the same bed with Wilfred Jr. But almost every morning, she finds Letricia and Wilfred Jr. snuggled tight.

Williams reported from Washington.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59934-2003Jun14.html?nav=hptop_ts



Sempers,

Roger