Christmas list topped with son’s safe return

Kit Brennick wore a red Santa hat and a shirt that said, “Part of my heart is in Iraq. Please God send my son home safely,” the night I met her.

She was helping to load care packages for the Marine Reserves of the Inland Northwest’s “Papa Battery” stationed now at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. She started to tell me that the separation was much worse for young Marine wives than Marine moms like her, but then her voice broke off. Round tears sprang to her brown eyes and splashed down her face.

In that moment, I knew everything I needed to know about what it’s like to be a mother of a Marine in Iraq this Christmas.

Yet I’m drawn to her story. Since ancient times the tales of war have been among the world’s most compelling literature. The Greeks told Homer’s epic poems over and over to make sense of their lives and the wars they faced. Today, war stories are unfolding primarily in Iraq, but also in real time here in Spokane, in places as mundane as an insurance office or the mall.

This Christmas these stories too need to be told.

Kit Brennick is a bright, organized woman with short dark hair and a quick smile, but she felt helpless when her 20-year-old son, Ryan Oscarson, announced he was headed for Iraq. She literally couldn’t speak of it for days.

After he left, she threw her energy into writing him letters, sending photos and shopping for weekly care packages with themes like “Snack Attack” and “Christmas in Iraq.”

She knew these Northwest Marines were longing for the sight of evergreens, not sand, this season, so she tracked down a 4-foot, artificial wall tree at the Display House.

That tree, a green symbol of home, now hangs from the sheet metal wall of her son’s sleeping quarters in Al Anbar province. There Ryan, an Eagle Scout with an infectious grin, plans to play Santa on Saturday morning. He’s already stashed a bag of treats to fill his bunkmates’ stockings.

Generosity comes easily to this North Central grad who often goes by the name “Reo.” Last Sunday his mom’s “Chocolate Nirvana” care package arrived. He gave away nearly an entire 18-pound box of goodies, including fudge Oreos, M&Ms and even chocolate-covered fudge PopTarts, within a couple of hours.

That day Kit’s cell phone rang while she was lost in NorthTown Mall. It was Ryan. She was searching for a particular store for his fiancé’s Christmas gift but couldn’t find it, so Ryan proceeded to give her directions through NorthTown by phone all the way from Iraq.

The technology may have changed since the time of the Trojan War, but the depth of human emotion surrounding the experience has not.

Kit and Ralph Oscarson met me in her State Farm office on Division last week to talk about their son. They know parents of active-duty Marines whose sons live in more precarious conditions than he does. Yet they also know there are people this Christmas who plot to blow up the Humvee Ryan drives and the place where he sleeps.

Though they’re no longer married to one another, they remain connected in their support of their children. These days each parent carries around anxiety that leaves their eyes rimmed red.

They’re like people you see in intensive-care waiting rooms. They have the tender gaze that comes of being so filled with fear and love and hope that they may break open at any moment.

Neither can quite bring themselves to decorate for Christmas. Kit usually can’t wait to drag out the boxes at her Corbin Park home.

This year she’ll skip the outside lights, forgo the garlands around the banisters. It’ll be all she can do to hang the ornaments from her tree.

Part of her heart is in Iraq this holiday season. When she’s not plotting care packages, she’s compiling a scrapbook of Ryan’s messages from Iraq, joining a Marine mom support group, or praying.

Politics have no place in her life right now. Kit only knows that having a son in the middle of a war changes everything.

Those early questions she had about weapons of mass destruction and the wisdom of this war have dissolved in the face of her need to support her son with her whole heart.

Ryan’s convinced he’s helping to give birth to a new democracy and that he’s part of a chapter of history, like those Greek wars, that will be told forever.

This Christmas his mother’s prayers reflect that stance. She prays that Ryan and his unit will be safe, that the upcoming elections in Iraq will go well and that the day will come soon when that country no longer needs the help of generous young men like Lance Cpl. Ryan Oscarson.