For Military Kids, War Is Daily Reality

July 3, 2006 — -- Reminders that America is still very much at war are everywhere in Killeen, Texas, unlike many American towns.

It's not just Fourth of July patriotism that has red, white and blue decorating Killeen -- it's the town's proximity to Fort Hood, the most populated U.S. military base in the country.

In Killeen, more families than not have relatives serving in Iraq, and almost 90 percent of the students at Shoemaker High School have parents who are deployed. The story of these unsung heroes has gone largely untold.

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Consider the eldest offspring of Lt. Col. Eugene Daniels, now out of Iraq but still serving in Kuwait.

Daniels' 17-year-old son, Eugene Daniels Jr., is a star football player at Shoemaker High School in Killeen and a top student with a handful of scholarships to colleges, including West Point.

For young men like Eugene, though, a father at war means trying to fill some really big shoes at home.

"Ever since I was little -- when he first started getting deployed -- it was always, 'Now you're the man of the house.' And, you know, I'm the only boy," he said. "That's my job. My dad's gone. I have to step it up. I'm not gonna cry about it. I'm just gonna do what I have to do."

Shoemaker's veteran guidance counselor Barbara Critchfield said she gets an earful daily of students' battles with everyday life.

"You give up a lot of your childhood. It's gone overnight," Critchfield said, adding, "I can't even begin to tell you what they give up. The kids aren't on the front line, but they're fighting. They're fighting it, too."

Then there's Shatonna Jones, 17, a cheerleader at Shoemaker whose father serves in Iraq with a dangerous mission.

"He works with mines," Shatonna said calmly, but with her eyes filling with tears. "As much as I can say that he's going to be OK, who guarantees me that? Nobody. So I don't know if he's going to come back OK. I don't know if somebody's gonna call and say, 'Your dad didn't make it.'"

Adding to her daily worry for her father's safety, Shatonna's mother has been ill with kidney failure and she has two younger siblings. She and the younger children said that their mother helped keep them going but that Shoemaker was their refuge.

In an effort to recognize the unique situation that the school's students live in, Critchfield and others at Shoemaker have lined the school's halls with 2,000 blue and silver stars -- the school's colors -- honoring each soldier serving abroad and his or her child's name. Because they ran out of room, 1,000 stars are still waiting to be hung.