Parents gripped by pride, fear as children prepare for military life

By Alice C. Elwell, Enterprise correspondent

Kevin Gomes of Taunton joined the Marines because his serviceman brother, Antonio, was injured his first month in Iraq when he was hit by shrapnel in his back.

“I want to help finish something he couldn't accomplish,” Kevin Gomes said.

Now, with Kevin a U.S. Marine, his mother, Maria Gomes, hopes he made the right decision joining the military as he could be headed to Iraq himself.

“We almost lost one, we don't want to lose another,” she said.

With more troops on their way to Iraq, many local parents see their children's decision to join the Marines as a double-edged sword. Their pride in their son or daughter is tempered by fear for their safety.

“I've never seen him have so much pride in defending the freedom of our country,” said Vicki LaCroix, mother of Corey Morrill of East Bridgewater.

But hearing talk of a military build-up in Iraq was “the scary part for me,” she said.

“Corey always had a calling. He's found his focus in the military. It's something he can believe in,” his mother said.


Like any other parent, Carmen Goncalves worries about her daughter Veronica going to Iraq after completing her training as a Marine.

“As a parent, put yourself in my shoes,” said Goncalves, of Brockton. “We're a very close family and she's missed dearly. God is with her. I have peace she'll be OK.”

Nancy Ramsey of Pembroke said she is “terrified” at the prospect that her son, Michael, will go to Iraq.

“But this is what he wants to do,” she said. “Where he's stationed, it's where he wants to go.”

Louis Bonitto's mother, Karen Bonitti of Brockton, finds solace in her faith.

“If he goes overseas,” she said, “I have great faith in God, my son does too. He has chosen this.”

As Karen Taylor of Abington, Kyle Taylor's mother, put it, “No mother likes to send her son to war.”

Fathers worry, too.

“I hope he'll keep out of harm's way, it's out of my control,” said Bryan Fermino's father, Dana Fermino, of Plymouth.

Ellie