By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Janet Borton's computer is surrounded by photographs and mementos of her son, Darryl, a soldier in Iraq. He has sent photos and even a toy camel. They communicate by e-mail and occasionally by letter. The Cincinnati Enquirer/MICHAEL E. KEATING

For as long as there have been soldiers and sailors fighting wars far from home, there have been letters sent home to mothers.

Whether it was the soldier in a foxhole in World War I, scribbling by the light of starburst shells, or the sailor resting on his bunk in the bowels of an aircraft carrier in World War II or today's soldier huddling over a laptop computer in an Iraqi village, their thoughts have always been of their mothers.

The one thread that runs through the thousands of letters and e-mails that have been sent to mothers back home through many wars and many years is the soldier's wish that his mother not worry.

But worry they do. After all, it is their children fighting these wars.

Today, on Mother's Day, with another war being fought halfway around the world, the Enquirer is publishing stories of Greater Cincinnati soldiers and their mothers from over the decades:

'I am safe and sound'

Hey mom! I am alive in case you are worried as usual.

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So reads the first line of an e-mail that popped up on the computer screen of Janet Borton of Milford on April 18, a message that came from the heart of Iraq's Sunni Triangle. It was typed out hurriedly by her son, Spc. Darryl Borton, 24, a soldier in C Company, 1-32nd Infantry Battalion, 10th Mountain Division.

Borton has worried non-stop since her son's boots hit the ground in Iraq in September and will worry until the day those boots walk through her front door.

Just got back from a three-day mission and I figured I would drop in and send an e-mail. We are getting ready for our move to Fallujah/Ramadi and I need to shower so I will try and call you before I leave ... love, darryl.

For much of her son's time in Iraq, the e-mails and satellite phone calls have been fairly regular - at least once a week and always reassuring.

During a recent two-week stretch, however, there was no word. Borton's electronic messages to her son went unanswered and she imagined him on a long and dangerous mission. She dreaded spending Mother's Day in anxiety and fear.

"I saw a soldier in Fallujah on TV the other day; he had a visor over half his face, but he sure looked like Darryl,'' Borton said, after seeing U.S. troops battle for control of the insurgent Iraqi city. "I don't know. Maybe every mother thinks she sees her son when a soldier's face is on the screen."

Then, on Wednesday, another e-mail from Iraq popped up.

Um, wow, you kind of yelled at me. It is not my fault I could not call or e-mail; I was stuck without computers. I sent you guys a package from Qatar so I kind of figured that might confirm I was alive.

I only spent a few days out there with my platoon in Fallujah, so don't stress. I don't think that place is that bad; it's all a matter of being careful. We blew up a few buildings and that was pretty much it. We mostly sandbagged and fortified our positions and then we broke them down and came in.

I am safe and sound and now the computers are up. OK, I will try and call you as soon as possible.

Love, Darryl

A call in the night

In modern war, mothers and sons have another way to communicate - the cell phone.

Nancy Finley of Forest Park knew that her son Sgt. Glenn Raibon, a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division, wasn't much of a letter writer. If she was to stay in touch with him, it would have to be through the cell phone he carried in his rucksack in Afghanistan.

"I'd get an e-mail now and then, but usually, it was a phone call in the middle of the night," said Finley, an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam era.

Her son, who served in Afghanistan with the Army's Special Forces in 2002 and 2003 and is now at Fort Bragg, S.C., would call when his unit had a break in tracking down the Taliban to reassure his worried mother that everything was OK.

"He'd talk about what was happening in their camp, about what he saw in the Afghan villages and cities," she said. "He'd tell me about how the Afghan women he met were glad that they could go to school now. The people he met were pretty friendly, except he knew they couldn't completely trust anybody.''

New Year's dinner, 1945

John Luecke found them 17 years ago, going through his mother Mina's belongings after she passed away.

Nearly 200 letters, yellowing from age, stacked neatly in a box and arranged in chronological order. They were letters she had kept for 40 years, letters he had sent her back home in Fort Thomas, when he was a young soldier of the 114th Infantry, Seventh Army, marching across Europe to help free the world of Nazi oppression.

"I had no idea she kept them,'' said Luecke, who came back after the war ended in 1945 and built a successful career in the lumber business.

All of them were signed "June," Luecke's family nickname.

Luecke's daughter, Pamela Luecke, a journalist, took 50 of what she believed were the best of the letters and bound them in a keepsake notebook.

The young soldier was hip-deep in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloody last advance of the German army, and saw much death and destruction. But his letters to his mother barely hint of that.

"I never told her how bad it was in combat," said Luecke of Monfort Heights. "I didn't want to worry her."

On New Year's Day 1945, the day after a particularly brutal counterattack by the Germans, he wrote a letter to his parents. This is some of what he said:

Jan. 1, 1945

Dear folks:

We had New Year's dinner at 3 p.m. and it was just as nice as Xmas. We had turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, peas, cranberry sauce, pie, cream and coffee.

I got 4 more packages at the meal too. Two were from you and two were from grandma. I've opened two and am saving the rest for later. I surely appreciated the fruit cocktail and peach juice. The hard Xmas cookies were really tasty too. All the packages have arrived in very good shape. You really packed them well.

My candle has about burned out so I'll have to close this letter. I'll be writing more later.

Love,

"June"

'We look out for each other'

Pfc. Christopher Flinn of the 1st Armored Division, a 32-year-old soldier from Clermont County's Union Township, was in the back seat of a Humvee when it was struck by an explosive device April 21 near Baghdad.

The gunner and interpreter in the Humvee were injured and flown to a military hospital in Germany. The driver had facial cuts. Flinn and a soldier in the front passenger seat suffered some temporary hearing loss.

Still, when he e-mailed his mother, Karen Flinn, with photos of the damaged Humvee, it was just more cause for concern for a mother who has waited for over a year for her son to come home. Then came another e-mail, April 21, after eight soldiers from Flinn's unit were killed by a suicide car bomber.

Don't worry, Mom, we are watching things much more closely, Flinn wrote.

We do look out for each other like brothers. Today was the memorial service for the eight fallen soldiers in Charlie Battery. There were a lot of teary eyes this morning. We had two generals here and two full bird colonels. It was very sad to see grown men break down and cry while giving a eulogy on each soldier.'

Karen Flinn had hoped and prayed her son would be home by now, his year of duty in Iraq over. But his unit was among those whose stay was extended at least 120 days. A month ago, he wrote his mother explaining why it was important to him to stay.

Mom,

The rumor was true. We are staying here in Iraq to help some of these other coalition units to retake some of the cities. I'm not allowed to say where we are going, but you will know as soon as the artillery starts falling.

We were all ready to come home and many of the soldiers had bought airline tickets, paid vacations/cruises and a few even planned to get married. At least I didn't plan anything.

It's all OK; we'll plan to be together some time in the future. I'm OK with this, I would not want to leave Iraq if other units are in dire need of assistance. I would feel awful if I heard about a large number of casualties to American soldiers and had left them here.

You know that I am strong in body, mind and spirit. I will have the Lord by my side and the spirits of both of my grandfathers to protect me. I know you will be praying for my safe return.

I love you, Mom and Dad, and everyone else too. God bless the USA!

Love,

Chris

'Got here safe and sound'

In June 1942, Pvt. Edward C. Federmann, a freshly enlisted soldier from Camp Washington, had just arrived at Camp Grant, Ill., for training as an Army medic when he hurriedly scribbled a postcard to his mother, Amelia Federmann, back home on Hopple Street.

Got here safe and sound, Pvt. Federmann wrote. Was on the train 12 hours and what a trip

I have not much time to write now. Will write tomorrow when I get more time. Lights go out in about 5 minutes. I'm in the medical department. So long, will be seeing you soon.

Nine months later, Pvt. Federmann was killed in Tunisia, trying to reach soldiers wounded and pinned down by machine gun fire.

A mother's grief and pride

Pfc. Joseph W. Schneider was 18 when he was killed in action in Korea in June 1952. Less than a year before, the only son of Joseph and Lillian Schneider of St. Bernard had been a football star for Roger Bacon High School.

A few days after the Defense Department telegram came informing her of her son's death, Mrs. Schneider sent an open letter to the Enquirer, addressed to her son. In it, she poured out her grief and frustration:

Dear Joe:

Before you left for Korea, you told me, 'War is like football. You follow the signals as they are called, play the game the best you know how - until the referee blows the whistle.'

I encouraged you in the belief, because I, as you, thought the game over there, even though it was not "official,'' should be played according to the rules.

Son, when you played halfback at home and the signal was given for you to carry the ball, you had 10 men and all your teammates on the sidelines, giving everything they had to help you score.

Many times I have seen you brought down, just short of the goal line, but you picked yourself up, pulled your helmet down a little tighter, and all of you clapping each other on the shoulder, went back to try again.

Win or lose you all played the game together.

When we received the word a week ago that the Great Referee had blown the whistle, taking you out of the game, I was literally torn apart, but I still held my head high with pride and faith in God and this big wonderful country of ours.

There must be some way to show our team down here that we must get over that ultimate goal line. To make them see that we must attain that goal regardless of sacrifice, hardship, taxes, loss or sorrow.

So at least when the last whistle is blown on the game over there or any place our boys have to score, we can throw our shoulders back, look at our fellow man whether he be working man, politician, businessman, manufacturer or union representative and say, 'We did our best, I'm proud of you.'

Love from all of us and God bless you.

Mother

'The armistice is in effect'

Edward Ralph Moser of Fort Mitchell had lost his mother and father by the time he went off to war in World War I.

His "mothers'' were three aunts - Anna, Hanna and Lula Murphy - who raised him for their sister.

They were the ones who received a steady stream of letters from the young soldier they called "Ralph" as he fought his way across France in 1918.

Soon after the Armistice that ended the fighting and meant that thousands of young American "doughboys'' would soon be coming home, Moser wrote a most hopeful letter from France on Nov. 17, 1918, to his surrogate mothers in Fort Mitchell:

Dear Aunts,

I've been tramping all around the country this afternoon and I'm tired, but I couldn't let the day pass without writing you, especially since the armistice is in effect. It would be useless to try to describe the effect of such an announcement. Suffice it to say the people went wild with joy. Bells rang incessantly, machine guns crackled their appreciation and one joy-crazed Tommy set fire to an ammunition dump.

The night was beautiful. The lowlands were lighted by bonfires of Victory while the heavens were fantastically illuminated by rockets, flare pistols, Verey lights, and, to top it all, the glad aviators, tearing along on a joy ride, dropped multi-colored signal lights.

You can't imagine the peace of mind a fellow enjoys now. We used to go to bed and couldn't tell whether a bomb or aerial torpedo would disturb our slumber and send us all to Kingdom Come or not. Now, we don't have any anxiety. Save that which is troubling every member of the AEF (Allied Expeditionary Force) and that is, 'when do we go home?'

By the time I write you again I expect to be far from here. In case my next letter should be delayed, let me hope that your Xmas be happy & one of Thanksgiving to God for the Peace of the World - and next year, I'll be there. Goodbye and love to all.

Ralph

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com