In the land of their loss

By Cindy Landrum  

OCTOBER 11, 2010 7:27 a.m. (0)

Sitting along the shore of a quiet Iraqi lake, Sheila Marshall read a sermon about peace.

Her son Evan wrote it when he was 16.

The sermon was her memorial to him, a soldier killed by a roadside explosion in Mosul two years ago, 200 miles from the serenity of Lake Dukan in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Marshall was one of 10 mothers – three from the Upstate – who spent 10 days in Iraq as a part of the FUTURE (Families United Toward Universal Respect) Gold Star Moms and Wives “Hugs for Healing” program. They returned Monday.

“The timing of the trip was right for me. I wanted to know if the Iraqi people really appreciated our sacrifice and they did,” she said. “I finally found some peace.”

During the lakeside memorial at Lake Dukan, one mother buried a little red heart in the sand, representing the piece of her lost in Iraq.

Another showed her son’s memorial service back in the States.

Gold Star mom Emily Shields of Campobello, whose son, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Andrew Shields died in a helicopter crash in Mosul on Dec. 9, 2004, told the group her pastor suggested Joshua 4 as appropriate scripture for the occasion.

Joshua 4 tells the story of the children of Israel’s crossing the Red Sea. After everybody had safely crossed, they picked up stones and placed them in a pile as a memorial for future generations.

One by one, each mother placed a stone on a pile. The stone Marshall placed had the word “peace” engraved on it. It had been on her son’s grave his since funeral.

Then Tammie Davenport, a Gold Star Mother from Anderson, began to sing, “Amazing Grace,” the song her son, James, told her he hummed each time he was in a firefight.

The other U.S. mothers joined in to sing the second verse.

A group of Iraqi women, who had accompanied the Gold Star moms everywhere during their trip, joined in the final verse. The entire families of some of them had been killed by Hussein’s chemical attacks.

“Praise God. Praise God,” they sang.

Joan Betros, a Greer resident who founded FUTURE, said the trip offered healing.

“To heal a nation, we must heal our families, and the women are key,” she said. “It was incredible to put two factions of women together.”

Betros said another “Hugs for Healing” trip is planned for May.

Shields said at first she didn’t know whether she wanted to go to Iraq.

But she decided she needed to find out about the Iraqi people and their customs and understand some of the things her son, Andrew, saw during the month he spent there before he was killed.

“He told us if they were walking around town, the little boys would wave flags and thank them,” she said. “Andrew said he was there so the children of Iraq could have a good life like he had.”

Shields said her son told his identical twin brother, Philip, he would not come back home from Iraq. Before he was deployed, Andrew asked a friend to speak at his funeral.

One of the few pictures she has of her son in Iraq shows him in uniform holding a hand-launched rocket.

“It was probably one of those that caused the crash,” she said.

Shields said the visit to Iraq, which included visits with dignitaries, humanitarian service projects, a military parade and a visit to Halabajah, a city that lost 5,000 people in five minutes because of one of Hussein’s chemical attacks, helped some of the mothers finally accept what had happened.

“I have accepted Andrew’s death because I know where he is,” she said. “He was a strong Christian. I know where he is. Parents always want to know where their children are and what they are doing.”

Shields said the visit to Halabajah was an emotional one for the mothers. She said one of the memorials reminded her of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Halabajah also reminded her of the Holocaust Museum.

“That’s just so sad, no matter where it happens,” she said. “It helped the mothers here realize their sons died helping someone. The Iraqi women and the American women share losses. The circumstances may have been different, but they are still losses.”

Ann Hampton, whose daughter, Kimberly Hampton, was the first female U.S. helicopter pilot killed in combat, said the trip was the single most healing event she’s ever been a part of.

“We’ll never be completely healed, but I think we finally understood why we’re in Iraq,” she said. “I felt she (Kimberly) was with me on this trip. I just felt a new peace.”