Co-workers go extra yard for reservist

LOON LAKE, Wash. – Army reservist John Cushman’s children have been playing on grass instead of gravel while he serves in Iraq, thanks to his fellow corrections officers at the Stevens County Jail.

Cushman’s wife, Monette, had her hands full with two young boys – Zachary, 6, and John, 1 1/2 – and needed a place for them to play outdoors this spring. But John Cushman was called to active duty in November just after the family had moved into a new home with no lawn.

Monette Cushman thought a couple of her husband’s co-workers might show up when she called for help in March. Instead, most of the 10-member staff came immediately, and groups of them still are coming.

“We take care of our own,” said corrections chief Shane Moffitt. “We’re small, and we’re family.”

Monette Cushman, who grew up in Spokane, said she hadn’t expected that when her husband joined the jail staff in February 2003 and they moved to Stevens County.

“It was such an unexpected kindness,” she said of her new lawn, garden and dog run. “They hadn’t known us that long.”

The Cushmans bought their first home, a modular house on a lot in the Loon Lake area, in September. Call-up orders arrived almost as soon as the mortgage.

A reservist for five years, 23-year-old John Cushman is a specialist in the 980th Engineer Battalion, based at Fort Hood, near Austin, Texas. He was deployed to Kuwait in March and is now serving near Baghdad, Iraq.

Cushman was due home on a two-week furlough Monday night.

Corrections officers had hoped to have Cushman’s yard completely ready for his furlough, but weren’t able to accomplish everything they planned. A crew will lay more sod soon, Moffitt said.

Monette Cushman said she had planned to sow grass seed if she could get help leveling her lawn.

“I started to cry when they told me they were going to bring out sod for me,” Cushman said.

She said the Quartzite Mountain Nursery in Chewelah gave a discount for the project, but the corrections workers would accept no money from her.

Cushman said the jail staff had urged her to call whenever she needed help while her husband was away. She said she called corrections Sgt. Wayne Gagnon often with reports on her husband, but “I didn’t need a whole lot of help until I tackled that yard.”

“It was kind of a gravel pile,” Moffitt said.

Gagnon led the first weekend work party, while Moffitt and others watched the jail. One of the corrections officers brought a small tractor to grade the lawn on that occasion.

The entire staff eventually participated as several subsequent work parties were mounted to fence in a dog run, make a garden and continue taming the yard.

“As a matter of fact, our cook even went down one time to pitch in where she could,” Moffitt said. “A number of the wives have gone down.”

“Ever since my husband joined the team, they have been treating me like a member of the family,” Monette Cushman said. “A great bunch of people.”