5 Years of War: The Rio Grande Valley has paid a heavy price for freedom abroad

Norma "Stormy" Molina cries as she describes the goodbye she and her 22-year-old son exchanged Sunday.

She won't see Pfc. Josue David "J.D." Molina for at least six months; he is at the start of his deployment to Fallujah, Iraq, with the U.S. Marine Corps.

"It was worse than childbirth," she says, dabbing at her eyes as she recalls the goodbye. "Like tearing the skin off my body."

Stormy joins the fraternity of countless family members and friends across the country forced to cope with the uncertainty of a loved one at war.

Today, March 19, the United States marks its fifth anniversary on the frontlines.

On this day in 2003, Americans gathered around their television sets and learned their U.S. military forces had begun attacking Iraq.

Since then, the political discourse at home has shifted.

And international relations have soured.

But perhaps no one's lives are more affected than the thousands of military families whose sons, daughters, fathers and mothers have been shipped to the frontlines.

Surveys show five years after the war's onset, Americans are weary of the conflict.

Nearly two-thirds don't believe the war is worth fighting, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted about three weeks ago.
And more than half of Americans don't think the United States is making progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq.

Heavy toll

The war has lasted longer than the Civil War and the periods during which the United States fought in World War I and World War II.

The country used a draft during those wars but today has an all-volunteer military. Because of that, fewer Americans cope with the day-to-day struggles of wartime.

"Nobody gets affected by this except people with family there," said Hidalgo resident Hector Cavazos, 26, a former Marine who spent two and a half years in Iraq.

Cavazos said his mother struggled during his time in Iraq, ultimately turning abnormally thin from the stress.
Stormy Molina said she worries that she too will become fraught with worry.

She described a friend who can't stand hearing the phone ring, for fear that someone on the other line will deliver bad news about her son, who also serves in Iraq.

"I hope I'm not in that situation," Molina said. "That would destroy my life."

Just as the country reaches today's milestone, another milestone is rapidly approaching: the 4,000th U.S. military casualty in Iraq.

Nearly two dozen Rio Grande Valley natives have died while serving in Iraq.

"Our Valley has taken a heavy toll," said Felix Rodriguez, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars District 18. He said he's attended every one of those troops' funerals.

"Jesus Christ... I still get a lump in my throat when I think about it."

Moms

Rodriguez said it's "appropriate and timely" for Americans to think and evaluate the state of the conflict on the anniversary.

A Vietnam veteran, he compares the current war to the one he served in and says the situation in Iraq has degenerated into a "quagmire."

"Bring our troops home from Iraq," Rodriguez said. "How could we have allowed ourselves to be diverted from Afghanistan into Iraq?"

Perspectives on the war are not all negative, though.

McAllen resident Cindy Villarreal, 26, dealt with her 29-year-old brother, Abel, serving two tours of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Army. He returned a few months ago.

"That was really, really hard .... we didn't know if he was going to come back," Villarreal said.

But, she said her family feels like there is progress in Iraq.

"It was a lot worse in the beginning," she said, based on accounts from her brother.

Likewise, McAllen resident Cindy Russell, 68, said she struggled as her son Scott Davis, 39, served two terms with the Army in Iraq. He returned home safely in December.

"You think about it constantly," Russell said. "It's always on your mind."

Russell and Molina are part of a group of Valley residents with children in Iraq who call themselves The Moms.

"We cry, we laugh, we try to encourage mothers whose sons are there now that their sons will come home."

Of course, for those whose children don't return alive - or who suffer great injury - the war is the hardest to bear.

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Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446.