The images of the war in Afghanistan are hard to shake. Even more so for those who have loved ones involved in the conflict.
When President Bush ordered attacks to commence Oct. 7, Sara and Neil Jervis of Port Angeles could only watch the 24-hour television news coverage and wonder if their son was involved.
It wasn’t until long after the United States’ response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that they learned of their son’s part in Operation Enduring Freedom halfway around the world.
On Christmas Day, they received a phone call from their son, Cpl. Ryan Jervis, a member of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Charlie Company — the same unit that raised the flag over Camp Rhino, the Marines’ staging base 65 miles south of Kandahar.
“It was horrible,” Sara Jervis recalled. “Every day we wondered — especially when somebody got hurt — when you heard a helicopter crashed and those friendly fire incidents.
“We didn’t know, she said. “You didn’t know until they released names.”
The rest of this story appears in today’s Peninsula Daily News. Click on “Subscribe” to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.
