Red, white and Blue Star

Before her youngest son, Josh, joined the Army, Kris Summers already had apprehensions.

Military service wasn’t foreign to her. Both of her grandfathers fought in World War II—and a nurse one met in wartime became her grandmother. Summers’ other son, Rolland, enlisted a couple years earlier out of Pleasant Valley High.

Josh was 17 at the time. Set to graduate from Durham High, he knew he wanted to be a “tanker”—an armor crewman, classification 19K, trained to operate armored equipment (i.e., tanks). He wanted to enlist early, so a parent had to sign the papers.

Mom and Dad had a long talk. Mom accompanied Josh to the recruiter.

“It was scary,” Summers recalled. “I felt like I was kind of signing his life away a little bit.”

Now 19, Josh has received deployment orders for 2019; Summers doesn’t know to where. In the meantime, he’s stationed at Fort Stewart, in Georgia—less than a five-hour drive from where Rolland is stationed, at Fort Bragg, N.C. Rolland, who turns 23 in September, serves as a paratrooper and in the Military Police Corps.

“As a military parent, everything can and will change,” Summers said. She and other military moms have two big sayings: “Hurry up and wait” and “Embrace the suck.” What happens to their children is beyond their control.

“It’s just hard because of the sacrifice they make,” she continued, “but at the same time, your pride is so overwhelming because of what they’re doing.”

For some sacrifices, only another military parent can understand. Summers found moms in Facebook groups but sought connections close to home. The national group Blue Star Mothers of America has 29 chapters in California; the closest are in Yuba City and Chester.

Another local military mom, Amber Abney-Bass, had the same idea. She also has two sons—Justin and Cody Abney—serving in the Army, in the infantry.

“I felt I was getting a lot of support from Facebook pages,” she said. “I thought, How fun to get it locally.”

Together, Summers and Abney-Bass rallied others to form Nor-Cal Blue Star Moms. After an informational meeting last month, they’ve got 10 members and a board that includes Abney-Bass as president and Summers as vice president. They’ve applied for a charter from Blue Star Mothers of America; their first official meeting is set for July 19 (see infobox).

By affiliating with an organization that dates to 1942, Summers said, “I like the idea of carrying on the history … and starting a new history.”

A similar search for camaraderie brought Crystal Vasquez to the nascent Nor-Cal Blue Star Moms. She, too, has two sons who left Chico for the Army: Jordan Scott, 21, a cavalry scout stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas, and Alex Vasquez, 20, a cavalry scout at Fort Stewart, along with Josh Summers.

“I was trying to connect with other parents,” Vasquez explained. “You don’t want to be a helicopter mom bugging the recruiter all the time. You don’t know what’s going on. Even though they’re adults, they’re still your kids.”

Contact with other parents, in a way, also is like contact with the kids.

“It’s hard to know what the military is going to be like,” she added. “When your kid goes away to college … you can plan things. You can’t plan around the military.”

Vasquez serves as secretary for Nor-Cal Blue Star Moms. The group plans to have two main thrusts: supporting each other and serving veterans. For the latter, Summers said, the list includes rides to appointments, grocery shopping, advocacy, assistance with paperwork and visits.

Aiding families is of prime importance; “if we can get involved with our veterans and help them out, we’ve succeeded,” Summers concluded. “There’s a bigger picture.”