Posted on Thu, Mar. 08, 2007

Multiple deployments increase family sacrifice
Lt. Col John Church is in Iraq. He has yet to meet his second son.
By Art Carey
Inquirer Staff Writer

In a small white house with an American flag by the door, on a quiet side street in Wayne, a wife lives with her two boys.

On Sunday mornings, the telephone rings. It's a Marine in Iraq calling home. After Mary Kay Church finishes talking to him, she turns the phone over to his namesake, John Carl 3d, or JC.

"Give Mommy a hug for me," Lt. Col. John Church says.

JC, two months shy of his second birthday, with a smile that tickles your heart, always obeys. He loves and admires his daddy, even though he hasn't seen him in a while. His daddy went back to Iraq in September.

But JC knows his voice. He points him out in pictures. He remembers the big, strong man who took him to the park across the street to watch Little League games. To keep his memory fresh, his mother videotaped his father reading stories to JC before leaving.

JC's father is in charge of 75 soldiers, sailors, Marines, and civilian translators and advisers. It's a civil affairs unit based in Ramadi, and its job is to reach out and make friends, to fix things that are broken, to rebuild, repair and heal, to show, as Mary Kay puts it, that Americans are "really not bad guys."

This is the second tour of duty in Iraq for the Marine reservist, who was earlier deployed to Kosovo. Multiple deployments have grown increasingly common. On Tuesday, the Defense Department calculated that as many as 28,500 more soldiers and Marines will go to Iraq as part the U.S. security surge. Some defense analysts worry that U.S. troops were already receiving insufficient time at home for recuperation and retraining.

In 2004, when John was sent to Iraq the first time, he had just been hired to teach English at Valley Forge Military Academy and College. Mary Kay, who served in the Marines for 21 years, had barely gotten them settled in their new home in Wayne. John was in Iraq for most of her pregnancy, then in Washington. He took a train north the morning JC was born.

In December, he was in Iraq again. Two days before his second son was born, John called his wife with a request: Can we name him Travis Joseph?

Travis, in honor of Army Capt. Travis Patriquin, just killed by an improvised explosive device.

Patriquin was a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia, John writes in an e-mail interview. "He spoke Arabic, moved freely among the local sheikhs and was accepted as a brother by them."

Joseph, in honor of Marine Corps Maj. Joseph McCloud, killed in a helicopter crash.

"He was a good Marine in every sense of the word," John writes. "He was dedicated, sincere and really cared most about the really important things - faith and family."

The baby's name would be Travis Joseph.

"If someone died and was important to my husband," Mary Kay says, "that's all I need to know."

When Patriquin's parents learned that the Churches had named their baby boy after their son, they sent Mary Kay a DVD telling the story of their son's life. "Little Travis will have this big angel standing over him to help and guide him," they promised.

Mary Kay's face is broad, with high cheekbones. Some people mistake her for Mexican or American Indian. Her mother was Japanese. On her father's side, she's Russian and Polish. She's a country girl, from a farm in central Maryland. Her face always wears a smile, and many of her sentences slide into an easy laugh.

Her days are long and full. She squeezes household chores and other duties between naps, baths, diaper changes and nursing sessions. She doesn't get out much. Once a week, she puts JC in a stroller and Travis in a baby sling and goes to the grocery store or farmer's market. Once a month, friends babysit the boys so she can go to the doctor, get her hair cut, run essential errands. She hasn't been to a movie in ages.

"Life is good," she says with typical cheer. "I love being able to stay home with my boys. I have my hands full, but not any more than anybody else."

She has been touched by the kindness of friends, neighbors and strangers.

When they learned her husband was serving in Iraq, the guys from Gutter Brothers who fixed her gutters and downspouts refused payment. (Mary Kay took them a Marine Corps silver dollar, and John plans to send a flag flown over headquarters in Ramadi.) Electrician Keith Martin, who hooked up her dryer and wired some other fixtures, tore up her check. The president of Valley Forge Military Academy and College, where John had risen from teacher to dean of the college before his latest deployment, brought over a Christmas tree.

"I'm not looking for handouts," Mary Kay says. "I'm independent and fairly private, so I've had to learn to be gracious."

She tries to stay in touch with John every day via e-mail and worries when the server is down for several days. One night, JC woke up and wouldn't stop crying. She was sure something bad had happened to John.

It turned out to be a false alarm, but she frets when she sees a strange car parked on the street, and she dreads the sight of a government vehicle. She doesn't like hearing the phone ring early in the morning or late at night.

"If something happens to John, I'm not worried about me. If I have to work shoveling snow, I'll survive. What concerns me is these little guys not knowing their father."

Does she resent the sacrifice she and her husband are making?

"This is the choice we made. We raised our hands to serve, and my husband knew he would be deployed," Mary Kay says. "We're proud to be able to contribute."

John feels the same. "I am humbled, honored and proud to serve with the young men and women here," he writes in an e-mail. "I wish all Americans could know not just the horror of war but also the true sense of selflessness and commitment to ideals beyond self that I see here every day."

And yet, he confesses, he is conflicted.

"I miss Mary Kay and the boys more than I ever imagined I would," he writes. "When I left, JC was not talking and now he easily greets me with 'Hi, Daddy. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.' It is amazing to me."

JC has learned other things. Ask him where Daddy is and he says, "Ahrock."

Ask him when Daddy will come back and JC says, "April."

Until then, in a small white house with an American flag by the door, a mother waits and prays for her husband with her two little boys - the one he has not seen for a long while, and the one he has not seen at all.
Contact staff writer Art Carey at 610-701-7623 or acarey@phillynews.com.

Ellie