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78 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, April 29, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend April 9, 2004 Mother worries about soldier son, then sees him on TV By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune WHITE CITY — Wendy Sander didn’t know whether her son Brandon was OK until a little before sunrise Wednesday morning. That’s when she saw Lance Cpl. Sander, a member of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, on a Fox News film clip covering the deadly Iraqi insurgency in Ramadi. "I had been up all night — we hadn’t heard anything from him since this all started," she said, later adding, "I could tell it was him. It was an up-close picture of two Marines. One was Brandon." She and husband Ted had been worried about their son, a 2000 graduate of North Medford High School. After all, they hadn’t heard from him since late in March. "His fiancee (in Los Angeles) had heard from him last Friday before this all started," Wendy Sander said. "He called her to tell her not to worry, that she wouldn’t hear from him for a little while." Advertisement Meanwhile, the U.S. military reported that 40 American troops were killed this week in Iraq, according to The Associated Press. A dozen Marines died Tuesday in an ambush in Ramadi, some 50 miles east of Fallujah, and four other Marines have died in the fighting near Baghdad since the weekend, including one on Thursday, the AP reported. Today marks a year since Baghdad fell to the American-led occupation. "In the clip they showed of him, he was on the front of a large tank," she said. "He was looking very serious, then I saw his big grin." She figures that grin, flashed half a world away, was his way of showing his parents that he was fine. "When he was in Iraq the first time, I wrote him and told him to wave and say, ‘Hi mom!’" she said in the event he was filmed by a news crew. "Of course, he told me that Marines don’t do that," she added. But as a parent, she knows the ongoing battle is no smiling matter for her son or other Americans serving in Iraq. "I hate to have him over there — it’s scary," she said. "But we can’t pull out at this point. They have to finish what they started." Cpl. Sander, whose birthday is April 21, turned 20 in Iraq last year as a member of a Marine unit that plunged across the border from Kuwait as soon as the war started. He will be celebrating his 21st birthday in Iraq, his mother observed. During the first tour, he returned late in September. His unit, which is based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., went back to Iraq this past February. He is expected to return home in October. "In a different way, because there seems to be more violence now, this is harder," his mother said. "I don’t really watch the news too much," she added. "I watch it a little and pray a lot." Her son, the next to the youngest of six siblings, isn’t the only Southern Oregonian in the region: Roughly 120 members of the Oregon Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion of the 186th Infantry arrived in Iraq late in March. The 1/186th, whose headquarters are in Ashland, has units in Medford, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls and Roseburg. They volunteered to augment the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry, which is based in Cottage Grove. The 705-member Oregon Guard group, which was sent to the Baghdad area, will be in Iraq for a year, according to Guard officials. There are also countless young men and women in other military uniforms from the region serving in Iraq. As of Thursday evening, 642 American service men and women have been killed in Iraq since the war started a little over a year ago. Roughly 3,000 have been wounded. The wounded include half a dozen people in uniform from Jackson and Josephine counties, including one woman. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S RESOURCES Oregon Road Conditions & Cams SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Food for Thought Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Prime Times