White CountyAR Military Family Awareness

Pillars: Bambi George

'They also serve': But Bambi George doesn't just stand and wait

Bambi George cries quietly. Sometimes the tears sneak up on her. Her husband, Jerome, is in Iraq with the 39th Infantry Brigade of the National Guard.

"This is my statement and I'm sticking to it: I'm worried because I'm that kind of person," she said. "But I'm not worried, because I trust God's with him, and he's strong. Do I have moments when I'm scared out of my wits for him? He's my husband. What else?"

Her sensitivity may be her most valuable contribution to the people of White County. There are about 150 National Guard soldiers from White County in Iraq right now, according to Chris Heathscott, public information officer for the 39th. There are that many families worrying.

For years now, George has been helping other adults deal with their fears by building and leading the Searcy Family Readiness Group. Now she has gone even further, having accepted in March the position of Arkansas Youth Development Coordinator helping the children of Guard parents called to duty.

But she still has a role with Family Readiness. On Tuesday, she was up in the middle of the night holding the hand of a Batesville woman in White County Medical Center giving birth to her first child, a girl. The woman's husband is in Iraq.

"She was really, really scared," said George the next day. Bambi George knows and understands.

Prominent community roles do not come naturally to her. She grew up sheltered (her word) in Helena, until the sixth grade, when her family moved to nearby Marvell, population 1,800.

"I count Searcy a big city," she said.

She was 19 and working in a Marvell restaurant when she met Jerome.

"Another waitress knew him and he'd come in every night for a Coke and something to eat. One day my parents and I went in to eat and the waitress said, 'You'll never guess who was asking about you.'"

She had been attracted to him before, and always made him extra Tater Tots and cheese on his hamburger. She "kinda/sorta chased him," she says - another confession.

She would pass him driving and flash her lights at him, but he never responded until she called him a snob for ignoring her, she said. What she didn't know was that his visits to the restaurant were to see her. He lived 25 miles away.

Then one day her mother pulled into the restaurant parking lot to take Bambi home from her job, then abruptly pulled away. Jerome rapped on the restaurant window. "I'm your ride home," he said.

She had thought he was her age - Jerome had a "baby face," she says. He was 25. They talked. He asked her out, but she already had a date for that Sunday. It was her last with another man.

Bambi George married a military man the day before her 21st birthday in 1990 and now they have a family: Chance, 13; Annie, 12; Hunter, 10; and Savannah, 8.

SIGNS OF CHANGE

As early as 1992, she was connecting to other Guard wives who understood the life. It was an informal role, until she understood how much more was possible.

"In 1998, I went to a family readiness conference in Eureka Springs educating Guardsmen and families about how it works," George said. "I'd been to Drill Weekends so I was familiar with most of it. I'd already gone to homes when somebody was sick. I'd brought Christmas dinners."

What she learned was that a prepared group could be a lifebuoy to families in a time of crisis. Jerome was full-time in the Guard, but many are not. At that time, the National Guard was considered by some an easy paycheck with little chance of actual service. But in 1998, there were signs that things might change.

Returning to Searcy, she went to see the commanding officer at the Bo Baker Armory.

"I was scared at first because ours was always a male unit, and I was going to present something having women there." She wanted a bigger role for the group.

"I spoke to him about getting it (a family readiness group) together in case the Guard was ever called up."

While Searcy already had a readiness program in White County, it was largely dormant.

"The Guard is in your community, they have regular jobs. In this area (White County) family readiness was not a priority. It was something there, but not at the forefront," she said.

"One of the soldiers said, 'Girl, we ain't never gonna be activated.' Not long after, some were called to Kuwait."

She discovered that most of the groups existing were, like Searcy's, barely functioning. Batesville and Augusta didn't have any family readiness groups at all.

"I called a meeting - Alma Vaughn, Debbie Baker, Tracy Harmon, Stacy Wood, Andrea Ireton, Marlene Lipe, Etta Melton - just eight women, and all the husbands came. We were transferred to Beebe the next year and I tried to get involved there. The other seven kept it going here."

After the first meeting, they had a day at the park of games and activities, just to get something started, but gathering participation was tough.

"There was a lot of resistance because people were busy and nothing had ever happened to bring tragedies or separation. They thought it was just another social group. After three months, we found out Batesville and Augusta were going to Kuwait. We went there and told them about what we were trying to do."

The National Guard hasn't gotten a lot of good press, George said. "It's the place draft dodgers go," a lot of people thought, and George wanted to counter that image with education to the local communities. Sometimes she received brush-offs and insults for her efforts.

Then came 9/11.

DEPLOYED TO EGYPT

"We were still in Beebe but living in Searcy. He (Jerome) was in Kansas City for leadership training. Mom called, and I turned on the TV as the second plane crashed into the Trade Center. I'm panicking, oh God, he's in a plane."

But Jerome called and said he was coming home. A week later he was on alert to go to the Sinai in Egypt, and he left Oct. 12.

As she tells this, she is remembering nights waking up alone. Jerome was gone 10 months, returning in July, 2002.

"While he was in Egypt, there were four deaths in our family. Annie got seriously sick with her kidneys (she's fine now), my father almost died of a heart attack. I was stretched way thin. He wasn't in massive danger, but it was the first deployment."

George says she found out a lot about herself in that period.

"I found out I could make it. Me and the kids discovered each others' strengths and helped each other through it."

Just before he left with the 39th Infantry for Fort Hood in late October, in preparation for Iraq, Jerome told The Daily Citizen he was worried about his oldest boy: during the last deployment, "the loss was apparent. He didn't get in trouble or anything, but his grades fell. A dad needs to be there to explain things at that age."

But the earlier deployment innoculated the boy against this one, says his mother.

"This time, Chance has matured a lot. I fuss at him for acting like a daddy - I don't want him to be an adult at 13 - and let me tell you, it starts plenty of wars. The other kids yell, 'You're not my daddy!'"

This time Bambi is stronger, too, and able to help other families even more.

"I was the family readiness leader for everyone in White County who would listen. The spouses suffer separation anxiety. There's a cut in income for many and they have to re-adjust their finances. For others, they just need advice or a shoulder. Much of the time it's flat-out fear - 'can I handle this?'

"They're going in so many directions, to the ballfield, making supper, to the dance club. Who's to wash the car, fix a fuse, do the taxes? One woman told me she'd never put gas in her car."

Before she began her new job working with young people, women came to George at her office in the Armory with lots of questions. There were a lot of medical and insurance issues. There were questions about child behavior. A child's anxiety may emerge in puzzling ways - the child might not be talking or eating, or might have a lot of anger.

But often, it's the spouse who is most overwhelmed.

"A lady came into my office at the Armory having difficulties because her car had broken down. But she seemed overly distraught about it. When she came in, she had just talked with somebody who had been rude to her, and finally she just started really crying, saying 'nobody in the world feels like I do right now.' They hurt so bad and all you can do is listen," George said.

"Seeing other people deal with things helps me to get through the day. But some days I have to close the office door and just lose it, because you hear somebody and how they're hurting, and you're hurting, and you just have to feel it."

That's what helps her help them.

CALLS AT 1 A.M.

Bambi's friend Liz Hellman drifted in and out among the spouse groups for a long time, but didn't become seriously involved until her husband, too, deployed to Egypt. She describes how difficult it was to see the soldiers leave for Kuwait, and now Iraq, so soon after returning.

"It's hard to function," Hellman said. "There's no one to listen to you except your child." She has a 22-year-old daughter on her own and a son at home, 15.

"It's nothing for one of us to call at 1 a.m. She doesn't need to say anything. Sometimes we've heard something on the news and had a really hard day."

Sometimes people can be

unintentionally cruel, George said. They can't know the pain the ones are in who are left behind.

"They'll say, 'The president's crazy and our guys don't need to be there.' You hear those things and want to scream. It hurts."

That's when the members of the Family Readiness Group turn to each other.

With George taking her new job in Little Rock, Liz Hellman is now president of the Searcy Family Readiness Group. At their last meeting, April 4, they had 30 members attend, she said.

A new family group is starting up here, one George sees a need for and is involved in. The Military Family Awareness Group is an independent group of volunteers working for community awareness of the need to support the troops.

"The tone is so raw now, and people say things without thinking. People want to help, but it's the yellow ribbons, the billboards, the feeling of being supported that counts," George said.

"I used to be a really scared person," said George. "I've changed a lot in these years. When he was here, Jerome went out there with the families, played with the kids, we were there. That's what the group is all about - the human factor. That's when I knew, no matter how ugly people were to me, what I was doing was important. Doing it made me realize I wanted a job where I could help people."

Her new role as Arkansas Youth Development Coordinator enables her to talk with children of deployed parents who don't feel they can talk to anyone else. They don't want to burden the parent left at home, and often they don't understand what they are feeling themselves.

"My role is to set up a network. I'm a continuous point of

contact for any military family," she said.

She talks with school administrators, many of whom have never dealt with the issues troubling children of deployed soldiers before, and works with youth groups like 4H Clubs and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

In late March, Bambi took her first airplane flight, to Kansas City to help start a pilot program there, "Operation Military Kids." She is indeed getting braver.

"It was awesome, but my ears popped," she said.

Life left behind is a life in limbo. The women Bambi counsels are single mothers, but they aren't, because their husbands are coming back. They suffer like widows, but the community doesn't understand. They aren't widows, but they live with gut-clenching fear. For them, there will be no healing closure until their husbands are back home for good.

Bambi last saw Jerome March 20, just before he left for Kuwait. It was bittersweet, she said. He was back for a couple of weeks, enough to get used to it, and then he was gone again. The official word, she says, is he won't be back until May, 2005.

She got a call from him last week, broken with static. All she heard were the words, "baby," "work" and "love."

A short while ago, Bambi heard a song on the car radio, "Only God Could Love You More."

"I was bawling. I cry quite a bit. Nights are hard when things are quiet and still. That was our time to talk. Going somewhere, I remember going with him."

The children are growing up. So is the sheltered girl from Marvell. They're planning a trip to Disney World when Jerome gets home.

Her smile is back.

"And we're gonna fly!"