Marin parents 'scared'
but proud
By Jennifer Upshaw, IJ reporter
Military families try to follow news
Yesterday, San Rafael's Mary Laflamme seemed to speak for all Marin parents with children poised to go to war.
"We're scared," said Laflamme, 63, a retired Fireman's Fund employee, whose son, Art, is an Army military intelligence company commander in Kuwait. "I'm actually sleeping well, but sometimes I get a scary thought."
Seated last night at the kitchen table in their home off Las Gallinas Avenue, Mary and her husband, Bob, joined millions of Americans who paused as President George W. Bush addressed the nation.
The difference between the Laflammes and most Americans? Their child is going to war.
After the four-minute address, the vigil before the television continued as the couple watched analysis and commentary on CBS. Conversation was sporadic. One minute they would murmur their reaction to the news, the next the conversation would drop off as they turned their undivided attention to the updates.
"I didn't want it to happen, but now that it's happening " Mary said, her voice trailing off.
The drill was the same hours earlier for many Marin parents with children in the military, who were never far from a television set as the hours slowly ticked away toward Bush's 5 p.m. PST deadline directing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave the country or face war.
For them, the day was spent coping with the knots in their stomachs.
Susan Cunliffe of Corte Madera was at work, a place she found cathartic in the midst of a war that appeared imminent.
"My job keeps me sane," she said matter-of-factly. "It's a healthy distraction."
The corporate banker has two sons in the Persian Gulf, the oldest a Black Hawk pilot with the 101st Airborne and the other an Army paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne.
"We're both just really nervous," she said, referring to the vigil she and her husband are keeping around the television set hoping for news that might ease their minds. "We both have jobs, but we have to keep trying to work."
Susie Hudson of Novato, the founder of the Marin chapter of Operation: Mom, a support group for families with loved ones in the military, said she is "scared to death."
"I heard somebody on television today being interviewed and I thought 'How can they be so confident?'" she said of the interviewee, who appeared unruffled despite having a child in a potential war zone.
Her 37-year-old son, a Special Forces green beret captain, is in Afghanistan. But she quickly added she knew that could change in a matter of hours once the war begins.
Mostly, it's Fox or CNN on Hudson's screen these days, but she said she occasionally switches over to reality television programs for a little relief.
Jean Nelson's 20-year-old son is driving fuel tanks in an Army transportation company, and last she heard he was in Kuwait.
That was two weeks ago.
"I can't get myself away from CNN," said the 53-year-old Novato resident, who owns a small business. "I have to go out and I was thinking about taking my headphones with me. I check the news on the hour every hour. It's very surreal I just go about my things, then I read something and I get really nervous."
Greenbrae's Lori Barsocchini, 52, a mother of six with two sons in the military, debated ignoring the deluge of war news when she woke up yesterday morning.
The Bacich Elementary School aide's 24-year-old son is in the Navy, stationed on the amphibious ship USS Bonhomme Richard.
She can only assume he's in the Persian Gulf and likely scared, she said.
"I'm just picking up on his fears and concerns," she said. "This morning, I woke up and said, 'Do I even want to turn it on, do I even want to know what's going on?'"
She counted herself among the few lucky parents who has received word from her son recently. Unlike Cunliffe, who hasn't heard from her youngest in three weeks, she regularly receives e-mail.
"I feel lucky," she said. "To this point, I've gotten e-mails daily and I save every one, but now I don't know. That's what is so disturbing."
Cunliffe said if there is an upside to the threat of war, it comes from the outpouring of support she's receiving.
Aside from the dozens of telephone calls and e-mails of support she's received, fifth- and sixth-graders at St. Patrick's Parochial School in Larkspur, her children's alma mater, are writing letters to her sons, she said.
"There is something incredibly positive coming out of this," she said. "My clients are e-mailing me and calling me, my management is stopping by to offer their support - the positive aspect of this is people are banding together and supporting us with kids over there. It makes me feel so much better knowing all these people are sending prayers, not just for my children but for everyone."
