Wilson, with daughters Kenyah, 12, and Joanna, 3, is on the home front now while husband Charles serves a military tour in Iraq. Right in step with them is Peppie, their Lhasa apso. / Doug Kapustin for USA WEEKEND
Leone's daughter Amaia, 7, wants to be a Marine like her mom—and dad. / Doug Kapustin for USA WEEKEND
Braswell embraces son Liam, 3. Eric, her husband, holds daughter Reilly, 5. / Pam Spaulding, Louisville Courier-Journal
Wilson with daughters Joanna and Kenyah on the May 6-8 WEEKEND cover. / Cover and cover story photographs by Doug Kapustin
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When we think about our armed forces and the sacrifices they make, we probably don't think about this: 72,682 are mothers.
These active-duty moms serve in every branch, at home and overseas, on land and at sea, in nearly every military specialty. Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, 212,000 women have been deployed there and to Afghanistan, thousands of whom have children back home.
The work is sweaty, dangerous and demanding. But it also is rewarding: A 2008 study reports the No. 1 reason women stay in the armed forces is job satisfaction.
This Mother's Day, we profile three remarkable women warriors. All three are moms and war veterans. One is now in Afghanistan. Moms such as Juanita Wilson, who has served 16 years, even after losing a hand in Iraq. All three have relied heavily on spouses, along with other family, for support during their deployments. Surely, the challenges are especially monumental for the military's 23,500 single mothers.
“I'm so proud of what she does,” says Kenyah Wilson, 12, Juanita's daughter.
So are we. Here is Juanita's story, along with two of her fellow mothers in arms.
Army Sgt. First Class Juanita Wilson, 37
Daughter Kenyah and dad Charles were at home in Hilo, Hawaii, on Aug. 21, 2004, when the call came. On the line was someone from the U.S. Army, bearing grim news: Kenyah's mother, five months into a year-long deployment to Baghdad, had been severely injured in a roadside bomb attack. Doctors weren't sure she would survive.
“I don't remember much about Hawaii,” says Kenyah. “But I remember that phone call. We all just started crying.”
The blast tore through Juanita Wilson's vehicle, driving shrapnel into her thighs and shredding the southpaw's left hand. Initially lucid, she continued working, telling the driver to take evasive maneuvers and calling for an account of injuries. Then she noticed her own wounds.
“I didn't feel anything at first,” recalls Wilson, an Army logistician as well as an advocate for wounded warriors and a military wife (Charles is an infantry soldier). “Then, this weird burning and tingling. When I looked down, I thought I should pray.” She had lost her hand.
When she returned to the States, she delayed her reunion with Kenyah for five weeks. “I didn't want her seeing me with all the tubes and bandages,” says Wilson, who spent eight months in recovery far from home at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Since her injury, life has had its challenges. Wilson remembers crying after returning home because she couldn't cut a croissant in half and spread jelly on it to make her daughter's favorite sandwich. Now, with a prosthetic hand, she has learned how to manage life's daily tasks, though she suffers migraines that started after the attack.
Still, Wilson says, she loves being a soldier and a mom. Her second daughter, Joanna, was born in 2008. Now it's her turn to cover the home front: Charles is serving a year-long tour in Iraq.
“Balance is everything,” says Wilson, who now lives in Baltimore and is assigned to the 313th Movement Control Battalion there. “When I am at work, I'm totally committed. When I'm at home, I'm totally committed. It's busy, but it's all gratifying.”
Wilson knows it's not the easiest way to live. But she hopes she's a good role model for her girls. As if to confirm that, Kenyah pipes up and says, “It's hard having two military parents, but they're incredible.”
Marine Staff Sgt. Maryalice Leone, 26
Her personal e-mail address includes the word “giggles,” and it's one of the few hints that Maryalice Leone isn't always the focused, hard-charging Marine she projects.
“I love being a Marine,” says Leone, who lives in York, Pa. “I can't imagine being anything else.”
In fact, Leone was nothing but enthusiastic when, at age 22, she was sent to Iraq as a combat photographer. And she wasn't the only one, she says.
“My husband was actually excited,” she says, but “not about me leaving!” Husband Wayne Rittner, 27, a former Marine who is now a freelance illustrator, saw it as a chance to forge a special bond with their daughter, Amaia Rittner, now 7. “It was a great time for them. They got to spend a lot of time together.”
Today, Leone says, she's living proof that you “can have a career and a family and be successful at both. It works for us.”
Amaia wants to be a Marine, too. But first, her parents need to make her understand that will mean she attends boot camp.
“For some reason, she thinks that since her mom and dad were Marines, she can just skip that part,” Leone says with a laugh.
Army Capt. Erin Braswell, 34
In some ways, Erin Braswell will spend Mother's Day as any other: Exercise in the morning, work for 12 to 14 hours, perhaps indulge in a little ice cream. But if she sees her two children, it will be via Skype.
Braswell is an Army intelligence officer in Afghanistan, her third deployment since daughter Reilly was born in 2005 and her fourth to a war zone.
“Maybe my family will even send me something,” she says from a remote base in eastern Afghanistan, her voice tinged with fatigue. “That would be nice.”
For this military mother of two, balancing life as a soldier and a parent has not been easy.
When Reilly was 5 months old, Braswell left for Iraq. When she returned six months later, Reilly didn't recognize her. “I wasn't there long enough for her to figure it out,” Braswell says.
When she learned she was pregnant again, she asked to leave the Army. Instead, she was called for a second tour, four months after Liam was born.
“I had some hard times with that one,” Braswell says. This time, she was gone for 14 months.
Like many soldiers, Braswell manages with strong support on the home front. Her husband, Eric, 36, an ex-Army Ranger and now maintenance officer at Fort Knox in Kentucky, was left to care for the baby, a first for him. “But my dad raised me since I was 2, so I knew it could be done,” he says. After Liam was born, Eric's dad moved from Georgia to help.
Two men and two babies. It hasn't been easy, Eric says.
“America doesn't think about single fathers too much,” he says. “I didn't really notice it until I started needing to stop to change a diaper and realized there aren't any changing tables in men's rooms.”
Eric says he tries to keep Mom in the kids' lives by talking about her, drafting e-mails together and calling when possible. Still, his wife worries about whether Liam, 4, will hug her when she returns. Says Braswell, “There's nothing worse than when your child won't come to you.”
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