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By KASIA KOPEC kkopec@leader.net
Thursday, March 20, 2003 Page: 4A
WEST PITTSTON – While her son Adam was in Iraq providing air defense for
U.S. troops, Nancy O’Toole was in her living room, in prayer.
She read Psalm 91, “Your faithfulness will shield you though a thousand
may fall around you. …”
The words stem the fear, ease the uncertainty.
“This is what I live by,” said O’Toole, who started MOMS, Mothers of
Military Servicemen, a support group for parents of service men and women
based at her church, Back Mountain Harvest Assembly. “It’s what gives me
courage.”
Adam, a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, called Monday at 5 a.m. to
say he was shipping out to Southern Turkey, where his mission is to provide
air cover for coalition ground troops moving into Iraq.
“He worries about those troops,” said O’Toole. “He’s a good officer,
always concerned about his men.”
The 25-year-old is a member of the NATO AWACS team, the same group that
provided air defense for the U.S. on Sept. 11 and in the months that followed.
“This is the first time (for) Article IV, the law that says if a member
nation asks for air defense it has to be provided,” O’Toole said. “So Adam
is actually making history.”
That’s appropriate because Adam majored in history and political science at
the University of Pittsburgh, where he was a member of the Reserve Officer
Training Corp.
After college, he did his advanced training at Tinsley Air Force Base in
Panama City, Fla., where he graduated first in his class and earned the choice
of his assignments: NATO.
“That’s the most elite assignment for any military person,” said O’Toole,
who added Adam knew from the time he was a child what path he would follow.
“He was knee-high to a grasshopper and he would run around the room flying
his airplanes,” she said. “I had to hang them from the ceiling in his room.
He’s always wanted to fly.”
The air battle manager coordinates air defense for his AWACS plane and the
units with which it is paired. He’s lived his dream of flying. And mom says he
now pursues another mission: helping people.
He sent letters and e-mails home with lists of friends he’d like his mom
and the others in the MOMS support group to remember.
The names were added to a host of about 100 soldier adoptees the
congregation at Back Mountain Harvest remembers in its 24-hour a day, seven
day a week circle of prayer.
In addition to keeping the soldiers in their thoughts, the congregation
regularly sends adoptees cards, notes and care packages. At Christmas, boxes
filled with calling cards, comic books, bubble gum, Gatorade and other goodies
were shipped to each of the adoptees along with pictures from area school
children.
The work keeps O’Toole focused on doing something constructive, so she
doesn’t get lost in her own fears.
“I cry a lot. I won’t pretend I don’t. But when I do, I get on my knees,
right here in the living room, and I ask for help.”
Kasia Kopec, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 970-7436.