The military moms of Lake Highlands sticking together as their sons serve overseas.
Photography by Yuvie Styles
As Pam Grieder prepared herself to go to her first Lake Highlands Military Moms meeting, she wasn’t in the best spirits.
Her son, Luke, was being deployed to active duty U.S. Army service — not an easy change for a mom.
“I went and I met these ladies. and I had that look of going, (imitates panic breathing) you know, he’s going into the army and everything. But they’re all so fun, and they laugh, and we laugh and we share things and everything,” she says. “ I’m thinking in my brain, ‘Why are these ladies so much fun? Their children are in the military.’ Then afterwards, we just built this friendship.”
The group was founded by Rhonda Russell and Paula Tharp in 2005. Russell’s son, now-retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Lee Russell, was being deployed to Iraq. She started to look for other Lake Highlands moms who had sons deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and promptly found Tharp, whose twin sons both served in the Army reserve, and organized the first Lake Highlands Military Moms meeting.
“In my hours off, I would make phone calls trying to find parents who had children that were in the military, because that’s when the Iraq War had broken out,” Russell says. “And I found Paula and four or five other mothers, and we met. We said, ‘Let’s meet, because it was a terrible time for mothers, and everybody was going through the same thing.’ Didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know if they’d make it home, and you just had to find other people. I mean, there’s just no way that you can just walk that walk without others that are going through it.”
That small group swelled quickly, with one event drawing 48 moms. Meetings typically begin with a meal, where moms can share their experiences, raise concerns or crack a joke — and the group shares a lot of laughs, they say.
Light-heartedness aside, the group’s main mission is to provide support and camaraderie for neighborhood moms with children serving overseas.
“As a group, we comfort anybody that comes in with a real concern,” Russell says. “And a lot of times, there’s other mothers in the group that have been through the exact same thing, so then they can share with them that it’s going to be OK. It’s just wonderful to be with others who are going through what you’ve been through. And even now, at every meeting, when we meet for dinner, we go around the table and let everyone that has a child overseas talk about that child and tell us what it is, what’s going on, and where they are.”
Meetings are generally held once a quarter and can vary in size depending on ebbing military deployment and recruitment patterns. In addition to meetings, the group participates in the annual Fourth of July Parade, assembles care packages for deployed LHHS graduates and organizes military appreciation events at local schools.
Most of the moms have sons and daughters in the army, but each service branch is represented. Marion Witt’s son, U.S. Navy Commander Trey Witt, flew helicopters for a decade before moving to his current role at the Pentagon. She says the group’s togetherness was a valued asset during his deployment.
“That’s one reason why this group is so helpful, because everyone in it either has had a child that’s deployed, or has already had a child that’s deployed, or has a child that is deployed, or will have a child that’s deployed,” Witt says. “So you can share your fears, your concerns, because they’re your kid. They’ll always be your kiddie, even when they’re 30 years old and they’re deployed.”
While there may only be one member of a family deployed, it can be easy to forget the impact of the deployment on their loved ones. That’s one of the reasons the group is so important, Witt says.
“It’s a family situation. It’s not just the kid. It’s the family, especially if they’re married, it’s the spouse situation, the kids,” she says. “So I think the thing people don’t understand is understand the breadth of how someone serves, how that affects so many people, even when they come home.”
Longtime neighbors probably remember the Lake Highlands Heroes posters. The posters, which displayed each deployed LHHS graduate’s portrait, name, rank and service branch, were a collaborative effort between the moms and the Exchange Club of Lake Highlands. While they were eventually discontinued for safety concerns, the posters were visceral reminders of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan’s impact on our neighborhood.
Russell remembers one moment from her days teaching at LHHS well.
“We put the first one up in Lake Highlands, and they had a family night,” Russell says. “I was still teaching there, and literally, a woman came up and was looking at it, and she was crying by the time she looked at that poster. A lot of people didn’t have any idea who all had been taken and who had gone.”
As many as 67 former wildcats were featured in a poster in 2011.
While most of their children have returned home in recent years, and as U.S. military recruiting and deployment slows, Russell says the group is determined to continue providing a safe space for Lake Highland’s military moms and is always open to new members.
“Usually, they’re excited that they found us, and we’re excited that they found us, because it’s very difficult right now to locate them, and that’s another thing — we are constantly looking for more. We know they’re out there. We know they’re out there, but the word isn’t getting out.”
