Military News - Military Times

A backbone to her soldier, her family

Renee Garcia knew she was representing thousands of other military moms as she accepted Operation Homefront’s inaugural Military Motherhood Award.

“Military wives are amazing ... inspiring,” she said, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

She described the family readiness group at Fort Campbell, Ky., as being “such a backbone” for her — calling just to see how she was doing while her husband, Army Sgt. Frank Garcia, is deployed to Afghanistan. She, in turn, volunteers as a key caller, checking on other military spouses.

The Military Motherhood Award, sponsored in part by the Military Times newspapers, was one of several events honoring military spouses in the week leading up to May 9, designated by President Bush as Military Spouse Day.

Carolyn Maupin was one of five Military Motherhood Award finalists. She is the mother of Army Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin, whose remains recently were found near Baghdad, four years after he was kidnapped from his convoy. She and her husband, Keith, founded the Yellow Ribbon Support Center, which has shipped about 10,000 care packages to troops.

Garcia was honored at a Capitol Hill reception May 8. Her 4-year-old daughter, Kennedy, whispered “Mommy” from her stroller, her eyes lighting up as her mother began to speak.

Garcia was nominated for the award by a civilian chaplain at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who saw Garcia in action when Kennedy was being treated for acute myelogenous leukemia.

“Renee showed me what it’s like to be a mother to four children, a friend to many others, and a wife to one remarkable man who currently serves in Afghanistan,” wrote Chaplain Khette Cox.

Kennedy was born with Down syndrome and was diagnosed with leukemia last year, when Garcia was 8½ months pregnant.

Cox told how Garcia spent months in the hospital room with Kennedy while caring for baby Keeghan, now 1 — and staying in close touch with her other two kids, Kassidy, 8, and Kameron, 6, at home with Garcia’s mother, who came to stay with them.

Garcia said she plans to spend her $5,000 award money when her husband returns for his midtour R&R trip. He and the family will go to Philadelphia in July for Kennedy’s spinal fusion surgery.

Military spouses gathered on the White House lawn for another event May 6 to honor six military spouses for their volunteer work:

* Air Force husband Bob Davison has made a difference in every military community he’s lived in over the past 12 years, from raising $10,000 for the local Fisher House at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, to starting the Airman’s Food Pantry at RAF Lakenheath, England, and raising nearly $120,000 in donations for short-term food aid for military families.

* Because of the challenges she faced after her husband, Terry, was injured in Iraq in 2004, Army wife Colleen Saffron helped found Operation Life Transformed, a nonprofit group that helps families of wounded troops get the training they need to work from home while caring for loved ones.

* Navy wife Ellen Patton has made and sent more than 80 quilts to veterans and wounded troops through her volunteer work with Quilts of Valor Foundation.

* Coast Guard wife Ramona Vazquez started “Nate’s Open Door Baby Pantry,” giving diapers, formula, clothing, toys and furniture to service members and civilians. She was inspired after the birth of a daughter to Nate Bruckenthal, an enlisted Coast Guardsman she had known, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004.

* Army Reserve wife Dawnle Scheetz started Operation School House, collecting school supplies, clothing and toys for children in Iraq and Afghanistan. In eight months, she collected five tons of supplies.

* Marine wife Kaprece James, a volunteer with the American Red Cross at Twentynine Palms, Calif., developed a program to help young people learn professional leadership and interviewing skills.