When Sarah O'Hearn arrives in Iraq, her thoughts will likely drift home
to Marshfield, to a horseback ride on Rexhame Beach. Back home, when Melissa O'Hearn's thoughts drift
toward Iraq, about Sarah being in harm's way, she will likely think about the same horseback ride.
They were two sisters, sharing much more than an evening ride on a beach. They were saying goodbye
last week, at least for a while, in a private, memorable way that was special to both of them.
"It was perfect," Sarah said of the ride, which she and Melissa took on her last night home on leave.
"The weather was perfect, the water was just the right height. We rode the beach part, then rode up
the dunes. It was a lot of bonding. Relaxing, riding next to each other, just talking."
Spc. Sarah O'Hearn, a 2003 graduate of Marshfield High School, is with the 772nd Military Police Company,
attached to Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts National
Guard. Her unit, which has been undergoing desert training in Mississippi, departs shortly for Iraq, perhaps
as soon as next week. Sarah, who is 22, will be in Iraq for at least a year, perhaps longer. She is among 15
women in her unit. Their mission in Iraq will include security details for dignitaries, transporting detainees
and searching Iraqi women at checkpoints.
Melissa, who is Sarah's only sibling, and their mother, Marilyn, both say that the United States has a
top-notch soldier in Sarah. "She is pure soldier. She volunteered for the mission, stepped up," said
Melissa, who is 30. "She was hand-picked," Marilyn said. "They've got a good soldier. She's a very
strong-willed girl. She knows what she has to do, and she'll just do it."
But, while the United States is sending a soldier to Iraq, Marilyn, 59, and Melissa are sending a daughter
and sister. There is a full gamut of emotions that comes with that, emotions that all loved ones of troops
in Iraq have to cope with, every minute of every day. For one, there is the worry. "Sometimes, when I'm
alone, out of the blue, she'll come to mind and I'll start crying," Marilyn said. "I just want her to come home,
sound of body, sound of mind. It is my only hope right now. Take it day by day." "When she was packing up
for Mississippi, it's when it pretty much hit me, and I got really emotional," Melissa said. "In that snap of time,
I was a blubbering idiot. It was, 'I may never, ever see her again.'"
Melissa and Marilyn did not know back in May when Sarah's unit first left for Mississippi that Sarah would be
able to come home one more time before being deployed to Iraq. But Sarah did get six days' leave, which
ended last week. There was a big party with family and friends, with plenty of stories about a mischievous,
fun-loving kid who is now a young woman going to war. "Face like an angel, mind like a devil," Melissa said
smiling. There was time while home on leave for Sarah to catch up with some of the people she's grown
close to in Marshfield. She kept busy working different jobs after high school, including at the Rexhame
General Store, as a cashier; at Leo's Bakery in Marshfield, helping make pastries and serving customers
on Sunday mornings, when the bakery served breakfast; and at a Lowe's home building supply store, as
a garden specialist. Sarah joined the National Guard in 2004, a year after graduation, and worked with
Guard recruiters. But while there was a lot of running around to renew acquaintances while she was home
on leave, there was also some quiet time for Sarah, Marilyn and Melissa, for the three of them to simply talk
about old times and new days.
Sarah is not nervous about the challenges facing her in Iraq. "I feel good about it," she said. "The training
we received was really good. And the people I'm going over there with, you form a really strong bond with
them, really good friendships. "You get a lot of trust. I trust them completely." She added that, "my thoughts
are of just being safe, really wanting everyone to be OK, to come home to their families - and making sure I
can do anything I can to make sure everyone comes home safe."
Sarah acknowledges that there is some nervousness. "It's the unexpectedness. You never know how
you're going to react until it happens. You can train and train and train, and some people just freeze," she
said. She knows that, at home, Melissa, Marilyn and other loved ones will be worrying about her.
"That is extremely important because it gives you more of a drive, to want to do whatever you have
to do, to make sure I come home," she said. "Going over there in the first place is just trying to secure
their safety back here at home. So, it's just that little drive to make sure you are more motivated to do
what you have to do.
In the meantime, Marilyn and Melissa O'Hearn will support her from home, send things to make her smile,
and, all the while, think special thoughts about a soldier, a daughter, a sister at war. "I'd never taken her
out on a beach ride. It's something we'd always said we're going to do," Melissa said. |