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LACEY — As the wife, mother and mother-in-law of Fort Lewis soldiers headed to Iraq, Joyce Hawkins said her fair share of goodbyes to family members last summer.
But in an improbable twist, the soldiers didn’t have to bid farewell to one another.
Her loved ones all serve in the 296th Brigade Support Battalion, a subordinate unit of one of the two Stryker brigades serving in and around Baghdad.
The unusual circumstances mean she has to try not to worry about not one, not two, but three family members serving in a war zone with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.
“At Christmastime, at least I knew they were together. That’s a comfort, that they’re together,” she said. “I think it would be harder if they were in different units.”
Her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Hawkins, 47, deployed in June for his second tour in Iraq. He orders ammunition for the entire brigade and is a 22-year Army veteran.
The following month, Joyce Hawkins saw off her son-in-law, Gustavo de la Victoria, a week after he married her 21-year-old daughter, Katrina. Katrina then followed her 23-year-old husband to Iraq in September. She joined the Army after graduating from River Ridge High School in 2003.
The couple serve in the same platoon and have similar jobs: She drives trucks, and he fuels and drives them.
The Army doesn’t track the number of family members serving at the same time.
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