Blue Star Moms leader finds relief through work

Contra Costa Times ^ | 6/19/6 | Dogen Hannah

[SmithL]

CONCORD - Less than three hours after Deb Saunders watched her son leave home for Marine Corps boot camp, terrorists flew the first hijacked airliner into the World Trade Center.

She had come to terms with 18-year-old Joseph Saunders' surprising decision to enlist and even come to support his choice. Then, the shock and horror of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, made clear just how much was at stake.

"I just knew that this was not going to stand ... that eventually there would be a military answer," she said. "I think anybody whose kid was in the service that day knew that everything had changed."

That common knowledge and burden led Saunders, a school office manager, to join and then lead a group of women with children in the armed forces. This year, she is serving a third consecutive term as president of East Bay Blue Star Moms.

The group is a way for the mothers to support one another and their children.

They meet monthly, often in one mother's house, to exchange insights and information. With help from relatives, friends and other supporters, they also lead donation drives to gather snacks, books, thank-you notes and other items to send in care packages to troops.

Saunders and other mothers also encourage and attend public events recognizing the contributions of current and former military members.

The mothers "really do a good job of enlightening people about the sacrifices that people in the military go through," said Gary Villalba, Contra Costa County's veteran services officer.

"I don't think the American population in general really fully appreciates or understands the sacrifices."

Since its founding within a couple months after Sept. 11, the group has grown to include 150 to 180 mothers from Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Saunders has been critical to the group's growth and vitality, said Peggy Conklin, one of the group's three founders.

"You could tell from the get-go that she had a lot to offer," said the San Ramon resident, praising Saunders' organizational and interpersonal skills. "Deb has a way about her. She just always knows the right thing to say."

Yet Saunders had been reluctant even to join the group.

By the spring of 2002, after the fight for Afghanistan and a year before the invasion of Iraq, Saunders' fears for her son had eased. She had learned that he would be in training for 18 months and so would not soon be in danger.

"I thought I was handling things OK," Saunders said.

Then, she discovered something at her first Blue Star Moms meeting. She realized that she yearned to share not only her fears but also the pride she felt for her son's willingness to undertake the hardships of military service.

"There was an instant affinity," she said. "Everyone in the room knew how I felt."

She told the group how her son had returned from boot camp to visit his fatally ill grandmother. Then, despite knowing he would not see her alive again, he returned to boot camp.

Other mothers were equally proud of the commitment to service their children had demonstrated one way or another, she discovered.

"That's when I knew that not everybody in America was going to get that -- not everybody in America knew how hard it was for those kids to go" into the military, she said.

Saunders first volunteered to host a monthly meeting, then became the group's co-president. The group elected her to be the sole president the next year, and she was re-elected this year.

With the Iraq war in its fourth year and about 155,000 troops there and in Afghanistan, the group's mission remains important, she said. The need for mothers to help one another and support overseas troops is great.

This month, the East Bay group mailed about 900 packages at a cost of about $13,000 in postage. Each year, it has mailed an average of about 4,000 packages, and troops have kept asking the group for more.

"As long as there are kids in need of those boxes, I guess that's what I'll continue to do," Saunders said of her decision to remain president.

She is also driven by a desire to make sure that returning troops do not encounter the indifferent or hostile homecoming that greeted those who fought in an earlier war.

The East Bay is home to more than 200,000 veterans.

"As I became more acquainted with the veterans, and especially the Vietnam-era veterans, I made up my mind very early on that Joe was never going to face that," Saunders said. "I knew that I had in my hands the ability to shape part of that."

Care package donors have shared that desire.

Even those opposed to the Iraq war have told mothers that they want to back the troops. Blue Star Moms has been able to attract supporters from a range of political viewpoints, partly because it has not espoused a position on the war, Villalba said.

"I know many of the moms would probably sit on one side of the argument or the other, but I don't see them playing that out in the public," he said. "That makes them effective."

Some people probably perceive the group's mission as simplistic and its members as Pollyannas, Saunders said. The reality is that Blue Star Moms is the first to want the troops home safe and sound and the last to take their service for granted.

"I want people to know that and to find in their hearts a way ... to honor these kids, because they deserve it," Saunders said. "They really do."

[SmithL]

Name: Deb Saunders

Age: 54

Home: Concord

Occupation: El Dorado Middle School office manager

Claim to fame: Leads the East Bay Blue Star Moms, a support group of mothers with children in the military, including in Iraq and Afghanistan

For information about Blue Star Moms:

East Bay chapter: www.bluestarmoms.org/

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Deb Saunders has a laugh in the office at El Dorado Middle School in Concord. Saunders is the leader of the Concord chapter of the Blue Star Moms.