War changed lives of those who served

Primary effects are in family relations, value of life itself.

Ethel Burns adopted her son Sherard Bilbo when she was stationed in the Philippines in 1977. Her only child has followed her tradition of military service, and so has his wife, Maria, leaving their young son with relatives one Christmas when both were deployed. As the mother of an airman, she experienced constant anxiety during his deployment and has begun to question the extent of U.S. military involvement around the world.

Staff Photo by Jim Witmer Ethel Burns adopted her son Sherard Bilbo when she was stationed in the Philippines in 1977. Her only child has followed her tradition of military service, and so has his wife, Maria, leaving their young son with relatives one Christmas when both were deployed. As the mother of an airman, she experienced constant anxiety during his deployment and has begun to question the extent of U.S. military involvement around the world.

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Beth Shanks of Hamilton nearly lost her son, Senior Airman Colton Brown, who became ill while serving in Iraq in late September, 2010. Colton has recovered, and is home for the holidays, but will soon be returning to active duty.

Staff photo by Greg Lynch Beth Shanks of Hamilton nearly lost her son, Senior Airman Colton Brown, who became ill while serving in Iraq in late September, 2010. Colton has recovered, and is home for the holidays, but will soon be returning to active duty.

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Contributed photo Sherard Bilbo and his wife Maria were both deployed in Iraq on Christmas, leaving their young son with relatives.

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Master Sgt. Mark Persinger is greeted by his wife Tina and daughters Nadeene, Kaitlyn and Emily when he returned from Iraq Sept. 30.

Contributed photo Master Sgt. Mark Persinger is greeted by his wife Tina and daughters Nadeene, Kaitlyn and Emily when he returned from Iraq Sept. 30.

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By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer Updated 12:15 PM Sunday, December 25, 2011

In June of 2010, Colton Brown deployed to Balad, Iraq, becoming one of more than 36,500 Ohioans who have served in the United States military overseas following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The senior airman from Hamilton almost did not make it back — but not for any of reasons he had feared. It was not an IED or a sniper that nearly took his life, but something in the very air he breathed. Brown lay in a medically-induced coma for a week, fighting a rare bacterial infection that nearly killed him.

Military doctors saved his life, and infectious disease specialists at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base restored him to health and, ultimately, to active duty.

Brown’s case is unusual in many ways, but like many other local service members he feels forever changed by the war in Iraq. “After coming that close to death, I now think about every decision in terms of how it’s going to affect other people,” he said. “I’d have left the world not in the way I wanted to.”

Thirty-three Miami Valley service members have been killed in Iraq during the nine years following the 2003 invasion. The war has had a profound impact on the lives of the soldiers who made it home.

For Brown, it meant relying on his military family to help him overcome life-threatening bacterial infection; for Master Sgt. Mark Persinger of Fairborn, it meant missing Christmas last year and being an absentee dad. For Stephanie Hunter of Miamisburg, it meant gaining new self-confidence and paying for her college education. For Ethel Burns of Dayton, it meant prolonged anxiety about the safety of her only son and his wife, both serving in the Air Force.

Persinger will cherish Christmas with his wife, Tina, and their three daughters even more this year after being stationed in Baghdad last year. He is one of 10,600 airmen deployed from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base since 9/11. Last Christmas Eve he was Skyping with his wife and parents when he was forced to leave abruptly when an “Incoming!” warning went out. “It was really bad last Christmas,” he said. “Hostilities always increase during our holiday period.”

Keeping a family together

He will be celebrating this Christmas with his close-knit extended family — and with daughters grown newly independent during the year he was away from them, learning to get themselves ready in the morning, do the laundry and even to help cook the Christmas dinner. “It’s a night-and-day difference,” Persinger said. “I used to take the Snowblower around the neighborhood. Now the kids go driveway to driveway, shoveling snow.”

Persinger worried about the burden placed on his wife as a virtual single mother with a seven-day-a-week shift job. “It was a big physical drain and emotional drain for Tina,” he said. “Luckily, we had friends and former commanders who kept in touch with her.”

Skyping was a godsend, compared with the old days when Persinger, 41, would line up to make a telephone call. “But when you have a bad day, you want to come home and talk to somebody. Sometimes she would tell me, ‘I just need a hug.’”

Persinger returned home Sept. 30, and now that his family has been reunited he has just one wish: “I want to see snow.”

This Christmas will be anxiety-free for Ethel Burns of Dayton for the first time in years. Her son, Air Force Staff Sgt. Sherard Bilbo, has been deployed to Iraq several times. Burns is an Air Force veteran who adopted the three-month-old Sherard when she was stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines in 1977. She was being treated for infertility when a friend told her about the abandoned infant. “Would you like to adopt him?” the friend asked Burns and her former husband, Gerard Bilbo. “We don’t want to put him in the orphanage.”

They did not hesitate. Sherard suffered from salmonella and weighed only 10 pounds, but “he had me at waaah,” Burns recalled.

His parents’ service inspired Bilbo to join the Air Force. “My mom was very influential,” recalled Bilbo, now 34 and stationed in Tucson, Ariz.

America’s mission

Burns is very proud of her son, but feels a growing ambivalence about the U.S. military presence around the world. “I’m relieved that the war in Iraq is ending, but it’s a temporary relief, with the conflict, still going in Afghanistan, and with the situation with Kim Jong-Il in Korea,” she said. “Sometimes I get the sense that we’re the marmalade that needs to be spread around the world. The difference in my life today than nine years ago is, I am weary of this country’s involvement in the Middle East or, anyplace else in the world where people are taught to hate Americans.”

In one letter, Bilbo confessed, “Mom, at times when we go out on missions, sometimes, I am not sure if I will make it back to the base.”

Recalled Burns, “After what seemed like a river of tears, I wanted to somehow call him up and tell him the same thing I told him so many times before he learned to drive: ‘Son, I will be there to pick you up.’”

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