Senator, like many parents, waits and worries about deployed son

[thedrifter]

March 27, 2003

Senator, like many parents, waits and worries about deployed son

By Rick Maze
Times staff writer

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., knows how many parents around the country are feeling right now ? he?s the only member of Congress with a child serving as an enlisted member in the military.
Johnson?s son, Brooks, a 31-year-old staff sergeant assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, is taking part in his fourth contingency mission in the last five years. The senator said he and his wife are probably like other parents of service members taking part in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

?We keep a map of Iraq in our family kitchen, as I am sure, in some similar way, the hundreds of thousands of other parents do all across this country, trying to keep track as best we can where our son is, as others keep track of whether their sons and daughters are, their husbands and wives,? Johnson said.

Speaking on the Senate floor shortly after a vote to set aside $3 billion in the 2004 budget for increases in combat-related pay and benefits and to improve equipment for reserve forces, Johnson said his family had anxious moments earlier this week when learning of casualties at the 101st Airborne Division?s Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait where a grenade was tossed into a command tend.

?I went to tell Barbara about it and it was almost impossible for me to even speak,? Johnson said.

The family later learned that the casualties were in a different brigade and that his son?s unit had already left Kuwait for Iraq.

?We breathed a sign of relief, as parents will when their own son or daughter has escaped harm, but we recognized more than ever because of our circumstances that while our son in that case was safe, the losses were very real. Someone else?s son, someone else?s husband was injured, was killed. Somewhere else, families are devastated.?

Communicating with his son has been ?spotty,? he said. ?Initially, we were able to get a couple e-mails. A short time ago, I received a note from our son on the back of a beef stew box, a piece of cardboard. They had no paper anywhere and they had to make do as they could. We will keep this forever.?

The fact that Johnson is the only member of Congress to have a son serving as an enlisted member of the military ? there are a few with children who are officers ? has been highlighted by proponents of returning to a military draft who would like the burden of military service shared more equitably across American society.

Johnson said he really didn?t have any influence on his son?s decision. ?Our son Brooks chose to enter the military. It was not my encouragement, particularly. It was his choice. All credit goes to him.?


Sempers,

Roger