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Soldier’s mom gets the unwanted phone call

Nov-10-2006 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

Soldier’s mom gets the unwanted phone call; son tells Jenkins assistant principal he was wounded in a firefight in Baghdad
By Ron Bartlett

On Tuesday afternoon, Linda Oliver got the phone call she had always feared.

Oliver, who works as an assistant principal at Jenkins Middle School, has a son, Alfred Jackson, currently serving with the Army in Iraq.

“When he called me Tuesday and he started talking to me, I could tell in his voice that something had happened,” she said.

Jackson’s unit, the 1st regiment, 23rd infantry “Stryker Brigade,” had been ambushed in Baghdad on Monday. The firefight left the American side with 12 wounded and one dead — and a piece of shrapnel had torn through Jackson’s calf.

He described the scene to her as chaos, with gunfire coming from everywhere, and then everything just exploded. He told his mom that he did not even realize that he had been hit until after he had gotten back safely to base. He said that’s when he realized the blood was coming from him and not from someone else.

“I just felt totally helpless,” Oliver said upon hearing the news “My child was hurt and I could not get to him. As a parent, it is the worst feeling in the world.”[...]


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