Group offers comfort to military families

By JAKE POTTER

Jane Burdette is all too familiar with the situation — waiting stateside while a close family member is serving in the military halfway across the world.

Once, it was her then-husband, fighting in the Vietnam War as a helicopter gunship pilot. Burdette joined the Waiting Wives’ Club and found comfort in a group of women sharing the same predicament.

A few decades later, Burdette, a News Reporter employee, is waiting again. This time, it’s for her daughter, Maj. Jennifer Coyner, an Army nurse, to get back home safely.

“It’s different now,” Burdette said. “There’s a difference between being a wife and a mother. I think it’s harder this time around, to some degree.”

In response, Burdette is getting a new support group off the ground, for all area residents with relatives serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is encouraging them to seek comfort the way she once did.

Burdette and friend Cely Graham—mother of Capt. Trey Mangus, a Marine currently deployed to Iraq—came up with the idea for the group. Since its numbers are limited thus far, the women have been meeting for lunch, but hope to find meeting space as the group grows.

“I’ve talked with Jim (High, News Reporter publisher), and he said we could use the paper’s lounge,” Burdette said.

‘You need to cope’

Burdette said her experience with the Vietnam War made her wish for a girl, so that the child would never be drafted.

“I didn’t want to send a child off to war,” she said.

Coyner, currently serving her second tour of duty in Iraq, isn’t quite on the front lines—the 36-year-old works with surgical teams at a Baghdad combat support hospital.

Coyner first got involved with the Army’s ROTC program. “Her dad was career Army, but she wanted to go into nursing,” Burdette said. “She talked to all the branches and decided the Army was the one for her.”

Burdette lived in Conway, S.C., during Coyner’s first tour.

“I really didn’t know anyone there,” she said of her stay there. “All my children lived somewhere else. I didn’t have all the support I could’ve used.

“It’s like any time you are going through something difficult. You need to cope.”

Burdette takes a little relief out of the fact that Coyner has established herself as an excellent markswoman. She laughs as she talks about one story her daughter shared with her. “Jenny needed to catch a ride somewhere,” Burdette said. “She flagged down a Jeep with two men in it, and jumped in.

“She didn’t really think about it until she got in, but she hadn’t seen their identification. So she tells the two men, ‘If you deviate from the course I told you, I’ll kill you.’ All of my friends thought that she was just the best after that.”

Coyner maintains a weblog detailing some of her daily activities, which Burdette said was a great outlet to alleviate some of her concerns.

Emotional support

Still, Burdette knows many parents or relatives of servicemen currently deployed don’t have that outlet. She also said that because service is voluntary and no longer based on the draft, stateside relatives don’t have as many friends in similar situations to talk with, especially if the family is small in number.

“A lot of those people around here have families,” Burdette said. “That helps him a lot. This group is something that folks without a lot of family members can do.”

Burdette hopes to bring her experience to the table in helping people deal with the absence of a relative serving overseas. She started with Graham, whose son Trey is serving his first tour of duty.

“This is her son’s first time, so she’s a little nervous,” she said.

Burdette was hesitant herself when she learned of Coyner’s aspirations. “Very much so,” she said. “But she should be back in October. I know she’s doing what she wants.”

For more information about the group, contact Burdette at 642-4104, ext. 254.