Sgt. Ronald Buxton, 32
FOR THOSE LEFT BEHIND, AN ANXIOUS KINSHIP
Audrey Buxton and her husband Sergeant Ronald (Reg) Buxton, talk all the time. In between phone calls they use instant messaging, e-mail, and even video conferencing so that he can see the new baby—connections unimaginable to previous generations of couples separated by American wars. But for all that communication, there's a lot that doesn't get said.

Audrey does not know about the raids and weapon seizures her husband's platoon regularly carries out. When asked how she was affected by the death of the unit's commander, she draws a blank. Her husband had been in the humvee when Lieut. Ben Colgan was hit, but Reg has never mentioned the attack. "There are certain things you just don't talk about," Audrey says. "When he gets back, he'll talk about what he feels like talking about."

Round faced and freckled, Audrey, 29, has a petite frame that belies her durability. She was in the military as a private first class until 1996 and has experienced separation before, when her husband went to Bosnia. But like many of the other wives connected to the Tomb Raiders platoon, based in Giessen, Germany, she has built a virtual fortress around her home while her husband is away.

It is a wall held up by willful ignorance, busy days caring for two small children and a rare kind of friendship with other military wives. On Aug. 18, Audrey gave birth to a 10-lb. baby boy, Jared, with no family in her time zone. But her friend Rochelle Kamont, who is married to Sergeant David Kamont, another member of the Tomb Raiders, was there, holding her hand, videotaping the birth, and sneaking a cell phone into the hospital so Audrey could have a brief, static-filled conversation with her husband. Audrey and Rochelle back each other up, just as their husbands do in Baghdad. "If I have a bad day, I call her. If something happens, I call her," says Audrey. "She's always there."

At the red-brick battalion headquarters on the base, a family-readiness group meets regularly to plan luncheons and trips to the zoo. If someone is sick, the other spouses mobilize grocery shopping and child care. In the corner there is a stack of coloring books to help kids prepare to say goodbye—and hello again. A wall is decorated with pictures of soldier-dads swimming in the pool at the Baghdad palace where they are quartered.

"My husband is not the only one in the military," Audrey says, balancing her sleeping baby on her shoulder. "It's the whole family." She was devastated that Reg would not be home for Jared's birth, but she buried that sadness for the sake of her newborn and her son Brendon, 7. When he asks where Daddy went, she tells him, "He's helping the other kids in Iraq because they don't have all the things we have." She and Brendon recently collected some of his toys to donate to an orphanage in Iraq. "That really helped because he feels involved," Audrey says.

Audrey limits her family's exposure to TV news. "You learn not to place much stock in rumors," she says. Plus she doesn't like to hear criticism of the soldiers. "I feel like they're attacking me personally," she says. Hardest of all is watching soldier-homecoming scenes. "It makes me cry," she says, smiling. "I turn it off. It doesn't seem fair." As Christmas approached, she and her sons flew to Tallahassee, Fla., to be with her parents. Sitting next to her on the first leg of the flight, across the Atlantic, was her friend Rochelle, pulling guard duty.
—By Amanda Ripley/Giessen

PFC Jim Beverly, 19
A PURPLE HEART AND A TICKET OUT
This is not what a mother wants to hear on the phone from her son serving in the Army in Iraq: "Well, I got my Purple Heart." Those words, delivered in a morphine slur, gave life to Jocelyn Perge's second worst nightmare about her son Jim Beverly, 19. Perge's ex-husband Charles Beverly felt his stomach drop when he got the same call from Jim, who had suffered shrapnel wounds to his face, hand and knee in a Dec. 10 grenade attack on a humvee. Then Charles experienced a powerful sense of relief. "He was on the phone, talking to me," he says of his son. "He's alive."

Jocelyn, 47, a first-grade teacher in Akron, Ohio, had opposed Jim's enlistment. His entire senior year of high school, he had talked about following his father and grandfather into the service. But because he was only 17 when he graduated, Jim needed both parents' permission to sign up. Thinking her son was just going through a phase, Jocelyn refused. She still "was in denial," she says, when he joined the Army two days after turning 18. Nonetheless, she says, "I'm proud of him for doing what he believed in." Although Jocelyn opposes the war, she never leaves the house without her gold star, a pin distributed by a local bank in support of the troops. Jim's father, a Vietnam veteran, was always enthusiastic about his son's enlistment. "It's an excellent idea for the education. You play the odds and figure they were in your favor," says Charles, 53, district manager for a photography company in Youngstown, Ohio.

Jocelyn confesses that once she was assured Jim's life was not in danger, she was worried the shrapnel had permanently disfigured her handsome son. "I know it's ridiculous," she says. "He's alive." Charles says he knows that Jim, who will spend Christmas recuperating in Akron, has the strength to prevail over this setback.

Both parents speak of Jim's sense of humor, and a creative bent that helps him escape. He likes to sketch characters from computer games and has a particular fondness for Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. His mother was surprised—and pleased—to learn his unit is called the Tomb Raiders. "That seems so appropriate for him," she says. Jim, who wants to become a journalist, has sketched characters and fantasy figures since childhood. He's good enough that his training unit at boot camp had him design a bulldog logo for their T shirts. Jocelyn knows he's running low on drawing supplies when she receives the rare letter home, asking for more colored pencils and notebooks. Jim also "draws a mean Sonic," another computer-game character that's a favorite of her first-graders. The kids know Jocelyn's son is in the war, and "they ask all the time if he's O.K.," she says. At Thanksgiving, the children brought her turkey drawings they had made for him. When she told them Jim had been hurt, they started making get-well cards. "I like being around them," she says. "It's comforting."
—By Maggie Sieger/Chicago

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