MILFORD - Vickie Adams, Milford, says when she gets to talk to her sons Matt and Phillip on the phone every few weeks the hardest part is hanging up. Both sons are currently serving in Iraq. Matt is a military policeman with the U.S. Army and Phillip is an electrician with the U.S. Air Force.
Adams said usually her sons talk about the weather and ask about family. "When it's time to hang up, I just have to take a deep breath," she said, "because you never know."
Adams said she and her husband, Rick, are very proud of their sons, who followed in their father's footsteps by enlisting. Rick served in the Air Force for more than nine years.
Both of the Adams' sons are married to military women. Matt's wife, Cassandra is in the Coast Guard and Phillip's wife, Jessica, is in the Air Force also.
Vickie said, as proud as she is, it isn't easy to have two sons working in a war zone.
"To have two in that situation, I almost died," she said."It's taken a lot of prayer."
Vickie said her church, Harvest Community Church, and other local churches have been a great source of support, sending notes and gifts to the soldiers in Iraq.
"The community support has been wonderful," she said.
Vickie said she also would like to start or join a support group for parents of soldiers. She said she could use the encouragement and understanding of other parents who face the same fears and experience the same pride she does about her sons. She also would welcome the chance to be an encouragement to others who are missing family members serving in the military.
She said e-mail and occasional phone contact helps ease some of her worries.
"I don't know how parents ever made it through, years ago, when they went months and months without hearing from their kids," Vickie said.
Matt deployed to Iraq in January and is due back in the U.S. in March 2009; Phillip went to Iraq in October 2007, and is expected to return next month.
"He'll be a father three weeks after he gets back," Adams said.
She said the child will be her first grandchild and she plans to travel to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina for the birth.
"I will spoil her even if it has to be long-distance," Adams said.
As they wait for their sons to return, the Adams' said they like to focus on how proud they are of them.
"I thought I was proud to have one in there," Adams said. "But, with two, you're twice as proud. It takes special people to do what they're doing."
For more information about a support group for parents of soldiers, call 574-518-2658.
