Wearing a Marines sweatshirt, Char Pierce pulls at the bronze metal bracelets on her wrist as she sits at a table in the Bridle Trails Tully’s on a recent afternoon.

One of the bracelets reads “Sgt. Ian Pierce, 2003-2004” – her son’s first deployment to Iraq when he was just 19 years old. One shows the date of Ian’s second deployment to Iraq in 2005-2006, while another black bracelet “Always in our Hearts” references one of Ian’s good friends, Sammamish High School graduate Eric Ward, who was killed in action on Feb. 21.

The bracelets remind Pierce how long her son has fought in the war in Iraq and now Afghanistan, where the staff sergeant is currently in charge of about 150 soldiers at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan.

In fact, war has affected Pierce since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 – also the very day Ian marched into the recruiter’s office after school to sign up for the Marines Reserves the day after he turned 18. And instead of going to his commencement at Lake Washington High School that June, he went to boot camp in San Diego to launch his military career.

After boot camp, Ian started school at Oregon State University and attended reserves meetings with the 6th ESB – Engineering Support Battalion in Oregon. But due to the Middle East conflict, Pierce knew her son’s chances of being activated were high and by Ian’s second quarter at school, he became an active duty Marine and was deployed to Iraq.

“It was total fear – absolute horror. I wanted to hit him over the head and drag him to Canada,” Pier recalled. “All kinds of crazy things go through your head.”

The second time seeing her son go off to Iraq was also difficult.

“When he came back from Iraq the first time, he would not have had to go back to Iraq as soon as he did, but he was having problems with survivor’s guilt because he had lost friends during his first deployment,” said Pierce, noting how difficult it is for some service men and women to acclimate back to mundane life at home.

Pier says the most difficult thing about having her only son fighting in the war is “not knowing.”

“It’s very difficult because you’re constantly scared of bad things happening and you’re scared to get up in the morning,” she said. “You’re afraid of phone calls and your most afraid of someone coming to the front door with the worst news of all.”

She said it’s also tough relating to her friends who are worried about dropping their kids off to college “when your kid has been dropped into a war.”

She has found comfort with other local moms who joined a larger support group called Oorah Moms in Issaquah for mothers of Marines.

She is also encouraged by the Kirkland community’s troop support, despite the so-called national trend where the “country has been so uninvolved,” she said.

“At the beginning of the war, people would slap a magnet on their car that was made in China that said support the troops,” said Pierce. “But they really didn’t do anything to help and it’s hard for people to understand the sacrifices of military families. And by the time the troops were pulling out of Iraq and going to Afghanistan, it’s like Afghanistan was the forgotten war and we’ve been at war for so many years that all people can think about is when are we going to pull out.”

Pierce says LWHS has not forgotten.

On Nov. 11, the school’s Beta Club will team with LWHS’s Honor Society, GSA, Key Club, Loyalty and its Leadership class to host a “packing party” at VFW Post 2995 in Redmond. At least 100 care packages will be sent to designated recipients, including Pierce’s son.

Karen Van Der Veer, an English and Social Studies teacher at LWHS leading the effort, says Pierce has also been a “vital force” in the post’s care package team.

Mary Jo Bogden

A Becca Specialist at LWHS and mother of four, Mary Jo Bogden is reminded of how vulnerable her son is every time she passes Jake Herring’s football jersey on display at the school. A 2001 graduate with her son Michael, Sgt. Herring was killed in Iraq.

“To this day, I don’t know why he joined,” she said on a recent afternoon at her office. “He felt it was his opportunity to serve.”

Michael, now 28, served 16 months in Iraq and is currently on the outskirts of Kandahar, Afghanistan at a base called Rocky Edgerton. Bogden pauses to grab a tissue as she describes the base, which was named after her son’s best friend.

“Rocky’s birthday was July 9 and an IED (improvised explosive device) killed him on July 10,” she said. “Mike said the most difficult part of that was putting Edgerton’s name on everything there. Worse day of their lives. This was devastating.”

Bogden received a “red alert” when Edgerton was killed, notifying families of the casualty. She scrolls through her e-mail inbox on the computer and opens a red alert notifying her that another one of Michael’s good friends was recently killed by an IED.

“It scares the crap out of me,” Bogden said of the alerts. “But I know if I’m getting a red alert nobody’s coming to my door.”

She said her biggest fear is the IED threat, but she feels secure that her son has moved up through the ranks quickly and is now a staff sergeant who spends less time out in the field.

Though she tries not to think about the war too often, she ends up checking her e-mail daily and waitingfor her cell phone to ring.

“I’m never without my cell phone because I never know when I’m going to get a phone call from him. We curse each other if one of us misses a call,” Bogden said of her husband, Nick.

She also said the LWHS community has been very supportive and she is thankful her son’s troop will soon be the recipient of some of the packages. Michael will come home next November, in time for his parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. He plans to finish college and work for Homeland Security.

LaTessa Tupling

LWHS 2006 graduate LaTessa Tupling says there is nothing peaceful about preparing yourself for war.

“You either have the will to do it or you don’t,” said Tupling, whose husband, Dale, is serving in Afghanistan.

LaTessa and Dale got married three years ago, just before both of them planned to join the military. She enlisted in the Navy but was discharged with a medical condition shortly after. He joined the Army and while stationed in Kentucky, he received orders to go to Afghanistan.

“I was a little scared because I know what it is and we had Kodi,” Tupling said of the couple’s son, now 18 months old. “I didn’t want to be by myself, but I knew going into this that I was going to be a single mom.”

So Tupling and her son moved back into her childhood home in Kirkland with her parents and younger brother and Dale went off to war. On a recent afternoon at her home, she points to Dale in a family photo.

“Daddy!” Kodi says.

Dale was deployed to Afghanistan on Feb. 1, when Kodi was just nine months old. Tupling says life is difficult, but she tries not to think about her husband during the day and “goes on about my day like he’s at work.”

Tupling too is thankful for LWHS’s support of her husband.

“For the guys to know that even high school students are willing to spend their Saturday, or their day off of school to put a pair of socks in a box for them, makes them feel like someone is still appreciating what they’re doing.”