McDonough mom copes as 3 sons depart for Afghanistan

Karmen Callaway dropped off her three sons at the National Guard Armory in Covington, where teary men and women embraced one last time in early morning light.

Karmen was not allowed to linger. Go home, her uniformed sons ordered, knowing that saying goodbye would be especially tough for their mother.

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Bita Honarvar/bhonarvar@ajc.com

— Karmen (left) and Mark Callaway have three sons who will all spend a year in Afghanistan in the same infantry unit.

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She had felt the sting of this moment before when, just a week after Mother’s Day in 2005, she sent her two oldest sons, Ryan and Jared, off to Iraq.

This time, they were taking their younger brother Seth with them, to the unforgiving mountains and valleys of Afghanistan, where they will serve for a year in the same unit, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment.

From Covington, where Company B is based, the Callaway boys left for six weeks of training at Camp Shelby, Miss., in March. They will deploy later this month.

Karmen, 46, is proud of her sons’ love for their country. She knows it is part of their heritage. But there’s no denying today is another Mother’s Day blemished. By longing, anxiety, uncertainty.

‘Mama, I joined’

Karmen prayed the entire year that Jared and Ryan spent with the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Infantry Brigade in Iraq. They were both so young and inexperienced.

Jared, 23, has spent all six of his years as a National Guardsman with Bravo Company and was stationed at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty, where he had access to a phone and Internet. Ryan, 25, served his first tour with a cavalry troop that patrolled the roads in an area south of the Iraqi capital known as the Triangle of Death. For many months, he had little contact with home.

Ryan lost a close friend, Sgt. Michael Stokely of Loganville, just three months into the tour when a bomb hidden along a dusty, rural road exploded near Stokely’s Humvee. His death shook up the closely knit cavalry troop and haunted Ryan.

Jared narrowly survived a rollover in his hulking Bradley Fighting Vehicle about a month after his arrival in Iraq. It was especially harrowing for him because he harbored vivid memories of another terrible accident years earlier at home in Henry County.

In Iraq, the boys occasionally connected, and Karmen and her husband, Mark, were overjoyed when Ryan’s face popped up on Jared’s Webcam. At least they had each other, Karmen thought.

But Iraq was turning their sons into mature men, in a manner too abrupt for Karmen’s liking. Some nights, she couldn’t sleep. Her youngest son helped fill the emptiness. Sometimes, he came in and lay next to her in bed and let his mama know that it was OK to cry. She shudders to think how that jittery year would have gone without Seth, now 20, by her side.

Ryan and Jared returned from Iraq in the spring of 2006, and almost two more years passed with the Callaway boys all safe at home again. Then one day in January 2008, Karmen was hanging up freshly laundered clothes in Seth’s closet when he broke the news.

“Mama,” he said. “I joined.”

He couldn’t look at her.

Karmen stood perfectly still. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Nobody knows what you and I went through,” she said.

“I know, Mama. We’ll always have that. But I really need to serve.”

At first, Jared and Ryan had reservations about Seth’s enlistment. They grilled him one night to make sure he was ready, that he was enlisting for the right reasons. A yearlong combat tour is agonizing enough for the most hardened soldier. If your heart’s not a hundred percent, it’s that much tougher.

Karmen doesn’t know how the discussion unfolded; her sons wouldn’t tell her.

“Mama,” they said, “this is a brother thing. Just know we’re going to take care of each other.”

Their bonds as brothers already run deep and strong, like the roots of an ancient tree. But in war, another sort of bond develops— from surviving its chilling sights, sounds and smells. Ryan and Jared already shared that; Seth wanted the same.

That thought was at once comforting and shocking to Karmen when she learned the 48th Brigade would be called up again. She had thoughts so grim she could not vocalize them.

She and Mark had already come close once to losing a child.

Six years ago, Jared was driving Seth and their only sister, Anna Katheryn, to Eagle’s Landing Baptist Church when his Honda Civic hydroplaned on a rain-slicked road, rolled over and crashed into a ditch.

Karmen and Mark heard the sirens from their home in Stockbridge. Then, the phone rang. It was Jared.

“Mama,” he said. “AK is not OK.”

Twelve-year-old Anna Katheryn had suffered brain injuries and was airlifted to Eggleston Children’s Hospital, where she lay in a coma.

Karmen endured unending days of waiting, of not knowing. A child is not supposed to die before a father or mother.

Anna Katheryn defied the odds. She awoke from a coma and after therapy and a year of home-schooling, she resumed the active life of a teenager.

But for Karmen, the fear of losing a child was magnified.

‘Stars of the Twilight’

People often ask Karmen if she’s seen Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” the 1998 movie based on the true story of the Niland brothers from upstate New York. All four fought in World War II. When three were believed dead, the fourth was sent back home.

Today’s all-volunteer Army has a rule that allows the sole surviving son or daughter of a family whose other children have been killed in action to request a waiver for deployment. But it does not prohibit siblings from serving together, although the Callaways’ battalion commander, Lt. Col. Matt Smith said the three brothers will not be sent out on missions together.

Karmen wanted to see “Saving Private Ryan” again. Even rented it. But she couldn’t watch.

When word came that the 48th was going to war again, Karmen took solace in her faith. And in the familial roots that turned her boys into soldiers.

They grew up in the woods that edged the back of the family home. They were little pretend soldiers then, playing paintball and building forts among tall pines and brush.

Later, a book called “Stars of the Twilight” resonated in their hearts. Written by Karmen’s grandmother, Mada Scott, the book was an account of how Karmen’s grandfather Churchill L. Scott Jr. saved everyone in his plane before going down over Europe during World War II.

Karmen says that story is why all three boys ended up in the military. Her grandmother’s words instilled love of country in their hearts.

Her pretend soldiers grew into real ones. Her boys say their mama is proud of their service, but they know what she looks like on the inside. They are counting on their sister to be there for her.

Awed by the recovery Anna Katheryn made after the car accident, her brothers felt especially protective of her. They gave her dates the evil eye. “Do we need to fight him?” they asked.

Last year, Ryan and Jared showed up at one of her tennis matches. They painted “Go” on their stomachs and “AK” on their backs and cheered shirtless.

Anna Katheryn couldn’t recall any other girl whose siblings did that. Or anyone else who had three brothers marching off to war.

At a surprise party they threw for her 18th birthday in January, the Callaway boys told the crowd they were sorry they would miss Anna Katheryn’s high school graduation. That they have always looked up to their baby sister — and not just because she is taller than them.

Known to be pranksters, they got serious in toasting their sister. “You’re my hero,” each one told her.

Anna Katheryn decided to attend nearby Gordon College for a while instead of the University of Georgia. She wanted to be close to home. It would be devastating for her mother to lose all her children at once.

A vast void

A few days ago, the Callaway home was full again at dinnertime. Not with boys, but girls.

Ryan and Jared both were married recently. Their wives, Louie and Heather, live nearby and visit Karmen as often as they can.

Karmen, studying at Mercer University for a degree in education, takes Heather’s 4-year-old daughter Courtney to school every morning. It’s another way to fill the void.

Karmen served up cheeseburgers and chocolate almond ice cream for the girls. Then they sat down at the kitchen table for a game of Rummy, just like they did when the boys were home.

“This ain’t fun,” joked Mark, who works for Target. “We need some males here. We lost three boys and gained three girls.”

“It’s OK,” Anna Katheryn said. “I’ll punch on you, beat up on you.”

Those are skills a girl learns when she grows up with three older brothers.

Karmen pulled out a pile of old photographs, mostly of the three boys. With painted tomahawk bellies at a Braves game. On a church mission trip to Mexico. In a sepia-tone portrait taken in vintage clothes at the Garden Ridge store in Stockbridge.

Jared’s pants were too tight, Karmen said, laughing. But he managed to smile. He always did, even in the most uncomfortable situations.

“Remember when Ryan ran away from home,” Karmen said. “He was 9. He came back home when he found out I was making macaroni and cheese.”

Karmen prays that all her sons will come back home again.

Today, she won’t be going to church with the boys as she likes to do on Mother’s Day. There’ll be no lunch afterward at Olive Garden. No cookout like she had last year after her sons built her a deck.

They won’t return to the house and play with water guns. Or sit down for a round of Scrabble. Karmen won’t have to restock the refrigerator because her high-energy sons won’t be there to gobble up its contents.

Karmen will spend another Mother’s Day with a vast void in her heart. She will sit with her cellphone and wait for it to light up. Three times.