|
|
But as the family watched Pierce walk down the exit at the airport, Mark says that was "It." He can't explain the "It," but it was the feeling of a father - thanking God that his son was alive and home - and mournful of the three soldiers traveling with his son who weren't so lucky on that fateful December day in Iraq.
"You go to sleep, and you don't sleep," Mark wrote of his experiences leading up to his reunion with his injured son. "You're awake and you're somewhere else, thoughts beyond what is physically at hand. Peace in your heart, hope in your mind, and reality, they come home ... he's home."
While serving on his second tour in Iraq, Mark said Pierce and four other soldiers were hit with explosively formed projectile bombs, newer and more deadly roadside bombs. Army Staff Sgt. Pierce Williams suffered shrapnel wounds to his left side, shrapnel wounds to his left shoulder, burns on his neck and hands, and ruptured, blown-out ear canals. His most significant injury, Mark said, was the traumatic brain injury from a concussion, from which doctors said only time would tell the long-term damage that was caused.
"Once they have a traumatic brain injury they can be fully functioning and just slowly lose some of the functions over the course of a year and up to two years, depending on how severe it is," Mark said of his son's prognosis. "It takes a year and a half to two years to recover back.
"Christmas day he was just Pierce, with no obvious detail of the life he endured over there," Mark wrote in a daily log he has kept since his sons started deploying to Iraq.
This log, is a chilling account of a father anxious about his sons, but proud of their service at the same time. It chronicles the major events each of his sons had to endure, as well as the other soldiers - serving alongside his three boys - who have been killed in the war.
Mark's sons are Staff Sgt Dustin Williams, 28, Pierce, 24, and Pvt. Preston Williams, 21.
Pierce was one of the lucky ones of his unit, Mark said, as two of his friends were killed in the bombing. While home for Christmas, Mark said his son was emotional after being unable to attend one funeral in Texas Dec. 23, and anxious to attend the other funeral in Oregon on Dec. 26. It was a short homecoming, but one Mark was very grateful for.
Ten months later, Mark said his son is doing well as he recovers with his wife and two children at Ft. Richardson, near Anchorage, Alaska. He still drives and cares for his children, he said, as he prepares to help with the Army's Warrior Transition Unit, which has just been established at Army bases across the U.S. to help other injured soldiers - still driven by a great desire to serve his country.
It's an attitude that all three of Mark's sons - all who serve in the U.S. Army - maintain. Their father, who served in the Army stateside for two years during the Vietnam War, instilled that sense of service, and he couldn't be prouder of his three sons who have taken that mission to heart.
"You need to give back to the country and a lot of people do it in different ways," he said.
Mark said his oldest son Dustin served one 17-month tour in Iraq with an Army infantry unit, and is currently a military sciences instructor at West Point. Mark's youngest son, Preston, only recently joined the Army as a combat medic and is serving in Iraq now. In the first 17 days he was in Iraq, Mark said his son handled eight casualties and 15 wounded soldiers - as his parents anxiously waited for him to call home.
"This morning at 1 a.m. he called and that was the first we heard from him in 17 days," Mark said. "With the other boys, we had a little better communication. He's doing pretty good. I think for the most part not being able to call home or call his fiancé (is driving) him up the wall. He sounded really tired this morning, but for the most part he was doing good and just looking forward to getting some sleep."
Gleaning information from the few-and-far-between phone calls with his deployed sons, and from visiting Internet sites that track casualties in specific areas without giving names, ranks or units, as well as keeping updated by family readiness group e-mails, has become a regular family practice in the Williams household these days. If he finds a casualty in the area where one of his sons served, Mark said, it's a long 48 hours before he finds out that his boys are OK.
"They don't give names or anything," he said of the Internet sites. "We do get information, but a lot of it is we seek and then we receive."
Headlines in the news, Mark said, don't help, and tend to be very stressful, as many of them are very negative - focusing on the casualties rather than on the good work being done in Iraq.
"That's the biggest thing is people always see the negative about what's going on so that's all they're going to believe," he said. "Nobody has heard a report that Iraq really has an Air Force now, and they're the ones who are driving the pipelines and things like that with their own airplanes. You always see the number of deaths every day, but you don't see how many new schools are opened up. I guess there needs to be a balance."
But no matter what the headlines say, Williams stressed the great importance of supporting the troops -at a time when war protests seem to all but divide the nation. While liberal politicians, media and Americans speak out against the war, Mark said it is the troops who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, giving their lives for freedom and the opportunity to help the native people build a better life, that tell the real story of what's going on. Through it all Mark maintains his faith, and it's a practice he continues, as he relies on heartfelt prayers for God to watch over his sons while they serve their country in a far away, embattled land.
"Every illness or injury since birth, we were there," Mark wrote in his log after his son Pierce was safely recovering from his injuries. "Nurturing them through school adolescence and into adulthood. We raised them to be strong, self reliant, and motivated. Their maturity developed through life's trial and tribulations before they chose to serve their country. It has grown exponentially since. But now they are men, making their choices and living them. We can offer advice, support and love. Each day we try to accept the eminent danger they have been in or are soon to be in."
