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WASHINGTON – What soldier wants to go to war with Mom?
It’s not tough, or particularly cool. And it doesn’t exactly fulfill the Spartan vision of the warrior ethos, especially if Mom starts ordering you to finish your green beans or clean up your barracks, or suddenly whips out some embarrassing childhood photos.
No wonder Chandra and LaShawn Miller, specialists with the D.C. Army National Guard, balked when their mother announced that she was transferring to their unit, the 547th Transportation Company, and deploying to Iraq with them.
The news was worse than having her chaperone a first date.
“I told her to stay home and bake cookies,” Chandra said of her mother, Sgt. Marcia Reid.
The prospect of losing her in combat would be like “losing my whole world,” Chandra said.
Reid considered staying home and spending the year doting on her grandchildren and working her safe job in information technology. But Reid is a soldier and a mother – and two of her four daughters were headed for Iraq.
“If they were to get hurt I would much rather be with them,” she said.
Although Chandra, 21, and LaShawn, 20, are grown, Reid had raised them almost single-handedly and couldn’t help but think of them as her babies still.
Now they’d be Over There, among the bombs and the bullets, 6,000 miles and several time zones away. So Reid, a former Marine with a penchant for action, decided to join them. In February, the 48-year-old from suburban Landover, Md., was reassigned to the 547th, where she is now known in the ranks as “Mama Reid.”
Her daughters pleaded with her to stay home. “If your mom is going, you have to worry about her all the time,” Chandra said.
But Mom rules. Especially when she outranks you.
The 547th recently shipped out to Camp Shelby, Miss., for several weeks of pre-deployment training. They could be headed for Iraq sometime next month.
After five brothers, the Sullivans from Iowa, were killed when their ship was torpedoed and sunk during World War II, Congress made several attempts to limit family members from serving in a unit together, but none became law, according to Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk, a Pentagon spokesman. There is no Defense Department policy prohibiting family members from serving together.
There are benefits to deploying with relatives.
“It makes it easier for me,” said Sgt. Andrew Williams, whose brother-in-law, Pfc. Edwin Liriano, is also in the 547th. “I know for a fact someone’s got my back.”
