Bereaved mothers share support in a small town

APOLLO, Pa. -- Some American towns seem untouched by war. Others are haunted by it.

The country's all-volunteer Army may keep certain cities insulated from the fighting and death in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then there are places such as Apollo, where four heartbroken mothers came together again last week. Freddie Jackson, Yvonne Wells, Perri Henry and Linda Sturges became friends after each lost a son in combat. Their most recent reunion followed the death of another Armstrong County soldier, 2nd Lt. Michael R. Girdano, killed Aug. 1 when a makeshift bomb exploded on a roadside in Afghanistan.

"The four of us went together to see his mother," Jackson said. "You can't understand the pain she's going through unless you've been through it yourself."

Jackson's only son, Army Staff Sgt. Stevon A. Booker, 34, was the first Armstrong County soldier to die in the war. Enemy gunmen killed him during an Army raid of Baghdad on April 5, 2003.

Since then, six other servicemen from Armstrong County, population 70,000, have died in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Jackson said her neighbors and friends helped her get through the torment of those first days and weeks after her son's death. Now she is so attuned to the war that she can recite from memory the names and circumstances of every Armstrong soldier who has died.

"I've been to the funerals, every last one of them. This week, I'm only here for one reason -- to support the Girdano family," she said.

Most of the Armstrong seven enlisted in the military soon after graduating from high school. Lt. Girdano, 23, of Kiskiminetas, actually committed to military service while in high school, though his path to the Army was different from the others. He received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and graduated last year as a second lieutenant.

For other soldiers, the military offered an opportunity to make some money and lessen the cost of a college education.

Pvt. Bradli N. Coleman, of Ford City, might have been able to pay for college through his Army service had he not died in an Iraq mortar blast at age 19 in May 2004, said his father Donald Coleman. For each dollar a soldier sets aside for college, he can receive a $2 contribution from the Army, Donald Coleman said.

"I suppose he could have joined the reserves and used the money he made from the Army for college, but Brad didn't think that was the right way to do it. He thought he should enlist," Coleman said.

Patriotism and loyalty to friends were motivators for other soldiers.

Spc. Joshua Henry, of Avonmore, joined the Army in 2001, before the terrorist attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York City. His younger sister, Jasmine Henry, said he re-enlisted for a second tour in August 2004, only to be killed a month later at age 21 by enemy gunfire in Iraq.

Spc. Henry and two of the other Armstrong County casualties, Sgt. Booker and Lt. Girdano, all graduated from the same small high school, Apollo-Ridge.

The wartime loss of three men from one school is especially startling given the fact that Apollo-Ridge sends only a handful of its students to the military. The overwhelming majority go to college.

Sgt. Booker, class of 1987, was happy to be one of the exceptions, his mother said. Eager to experience life beyond the borders of a small town, he served in the first Gulf War in 1991 and then in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"There's nothing in Apollo," Jackson said. "I think if my son had to do it again, he would still join the Army."

Jackson said she thinks about her son every day, but now she also is focusing on Lt. Girdano and his family.

She was among more than 300 people who attended a memorial service for Lt. Girdano on Friday night and planned to attend his funeral Tuesday.

"Apollo was very good to me when my son was killed," Jackson said. "I want to render what I received."

E-mail Milan Simonich at msimonich(at)post-gazette.com

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)