Krysta Pospichal awaits the return of husband Joe from Iraq. He obtained a leave earlier this year to be home for the birth of the couple’s son, Cullen. During her husband’s deployment, Krysta and Cullen are staying with her parents in Grafton.

The words — written in shaky elementary school script ­— were far from prose.

And the author, a young girl probably in second or third grade, was a stranger.

But in the middle of the desert at 20 years old and thousands of miles from the Fox Point home he grew up in, it didn’t really matter to Jon Linhart.

"Thank you for your service," it read.

A homemade card like this one was more likely to end up pegged to a refrigerator or tucked away in a doting mother’s keepsake box, not in a Marines’ heavy pack laden with tools of survival and war.

But into the lance corporal’s pack it went, stored along with letters from his mom, dad and close friends.

"I don’t know, something about the card I guess hit me," says Linhart, a 2003 graduate of Nicolet High School. "I was thinking here is this little girl back in her classroom writing me this letter."

Linhart calls this card and the effort that went into its three or four sentences "a huge thing."

That’s how important letters — even those from an unknown third-grader living in a town he’s never heard of — are when you’re in Iraq.

"Mail receive is just huge," he says, sounding more like a freshman in college than a Marine who just completed a deployment in Iraq. "Knowing that someone, anyone took time out of their day to write to you is just, well … let’s just say I still have every single letter sent from home. And even though your pack is so heavy, you just find a spot for it. You stash them in your pack or in the truck."

Linhart, a Marine in the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, stationed at the Marine Corps base in Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii, is just one out of thousands of men and women who are serving in the military during what many have dubbed the War on Terror. And as each one fulfills the call to serve, they leave behind sons and daughters, wives, husbands and parents, who struggle to fill the void with anything that offers support, while pushing their biggest fears to the backs of their minds.

Bob and Linda Bublitz of Grafton have weathered two tours of duty in Iraq by son Mike, who is in the Air Force.

Coping with their absence oftentimes becomes a juggling act between hours surfing the Internet and cable news channels, taking on various "support" efforts for the troops and sending care packages, all the while trying to maintain the semblance of a normal life.

"The stages people go through, both the troops and the families, when they are deployed are similar to the grieving process," says Susan Knauer, director of the 440th Airlift Wing family support center in Milwaukee. "And once they’ve left, each person copes differently. Some families stay glued to the TV and others won’t go near it.

"Regardless of how they cope, we tell them it’s very important to take care of yourself, to maintain a healthy diet and exercise and to keep busy," Knauer says. "If you sit around and worry it’s not good for you."

Lt. Col. Steve DeGuire with the 440th Airlift Wing was a longtime Navy reservist before the events of Sept. 11, 2001 prompted him to be more active and join the Air Force reserves. The Mequon man says he knew his family would be well taken care of if he were called overseas.

"I know my wife and kids have her family here and my family, including my eight brothers and sisters, to lend support," he says. "In part, that made my decision easier."

DeGuire was called up for a three-month rotation last year, during which he provided support for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places in the Middle East. DeGuire says frequent communication has helped improve serving overseas tremendously. He says the hardest part is right before you leave.

"There is relatively little time to get what I call the administrative stuff in order," he says. "So you’re busy worrying about powers of attorney, taxes and whether the cars are working instead of spending time together."

In many cases, like that of Grafton resident Krysta Pospichal, those who are left behind take on unfamiliar family roles — serving as both mother and father.

Sitting in her parents’ living room surrounded by family portraits and wearing a wispy floral top and jeans, Pospichal could be a college student home for a visit and a home-cooked meal. Until recently she was that college student, attending the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Tink and Dick Linhart of Fox Point are spearheading an effort to make quilts for the families of their son’s Marine Corps regiment. During its deployment in Iraq the regiment lost 48 soldiers.

But a little squeak from the kitchen is a reminder of how joyous, complicated, stressful and different her life is from the typical coed. In the past year she has married husband Joe and prepared for his deployment. Then as a pregnant military wife of 20, she watched him leave for Iraq.

"I had to tell myself he’s active duty and he knew this was going to happen," she says.

Two weeks before Joe left for Iraq, the couple stayed in Kansas near Fort Riley, his home base. The night he left, they said goodbye in a parking lot close to midnight.

As a military wife Pospichal could have moved onto the Army base, but the couple decided it would be best if she moved in with her parents until Joe came home. For the next several months Pospichal took over the finances, attended a birthing class with her brother, Marcus, and tried not to worry.

Still, as her son, Cullen, lets out another squeak from the kitchen, she smiles and talks about how wonderful it was when Joe came home recently for the baby’s delivery. "I think it was probably harder when he left this last time because I know he won’t be back until January," she says. "Leaving was really hard for him too because he knew he wouldn’t be here for Cullen’s first nine months."

Pospichal says the frequent contact with Joe, the strength of her family and her friends have helped her cope with Joe’s absence. "Joe tells me, ‘Don’t watch the news. It’s not as bad over here as the news portrays it,’ but it’s hard not to watch."

Pospichal says she also gets support from the family readiness group through Fort Riley via e-mails and telephone calls. "As much as my family helps, they don’t have the same understanding as a military wife," she says.

DeGuire says the Air Force offers all family members support at each of its bases. "On top of that, I have to say that Wisconsin in general and Milwaukee especially have been incredibly supportive to the troops and their families," he says. "And we are grateful."

Parents often struggle when their child leaves, and they, too, need support, Knauer says. "And they also help give support back to the troops as well. I have to say since I’ve been here the spouses and families and the community in general have given so much support. It’s pretty impressive."

Linda and Bob Bublitz of Grafton relied on each other, their family and prayer when son Mike enlisted in the Air Force.

"I never imagined one of my kids would come home one day and say they were joining the military," Linda Bublitz says. "I immediately said, ‘Oh no.’ I was totally against it."

Mike was set on entering into the security forces, and though Bob was OK with their son’s decision, Linda says she struggled to keep an open mind. She remembered what it was like when she was dating Bob and he went to Vietnam. "I had all sorts of questions for the commander," she says of Mike’s situation. "Questions like ‘Are you going to guarantee his safety?’"

When the war began in March 2003 Mike was among the first troops sent to Iraq. "For three months we didn’t know where he was," his mom says. "We would sit here and listen to the TV until midnight."

Even though they were proud of their son and his desire to serve his country, they found it difficult to receive support from others. "We didn’t want to talk to anyone or answer their questions, even though I know they were trying to be supportive," Linda Bublitz says.

When Mike arrived home the Bublitzes thought it was over. But then in March 2004 he was deployed again. This time they were able to communicate more frequently, which created a different kind of problem.

"We expected the calls, so if an extra day went by it and he didn’t call it was worse," Linda Bublitz says. Throughout both deployments, Mike talked to them about the amount of support he and the others received. "He would say ‘You would be so surprised if you saw all of the boxes,’" she says.

Barb Meyer, a Grafton resident and teacher at First Immanuel Lutheran and St. Francis Borgia Catholic schools in Cedarburg, helped contribute to the letters that Mike Bublitz and other troops received during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Meyer has been a long supporter of the troops, going back to the Vietnam War when her husband was drafted.

"We were around for the Democratic convention and when they protested and when they trashed the student union at Purdue, and it angered me so," she says. "I just could not believe how they treated the military.

"When you’re raised in a patriotic household like I was it just became part of your constitution," she says.

She became more actively involved in 1990, when a friend’s son was sent to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm. She helped find the names of friends and family who were serving and had her students at First Immanuel to help write letters. Mike Bublitz was one of the students who sent letters to the troops.

After Sept. 11, as troops went to Afghanistan, Meyer took on a similar letter-writing campaign. "I don’t think people realize how it touches them when they get a letter," she says. "Especially letters from children. You just never know how the kids’ cards and drawings will impact them."

During the latest conflict in Iraq, Meyer helped organize a larger effort through Give2thetroops.org, a nonprofit organization that helps funnel items to troops. This time letters and cards and care packages were sent to the troops.

"And of course the kids were ecstatic that they helped someone," she says. "I want the kids in my classroom to understand that our purpose on this Earth is to help people."

For many moms and dads getting involved helps channel their pride into a worthy effort and takes their minds off of their child’s welfare. Pattie and Bob Cox of Mequon, whose son, Sam, is in the Marine Corps, are involved in ways large and small.

"Sometimes it’s just going up to a Marine you see on the sidewalk and saying thank you," Bob Cox says. Pattie Cox has spoken to a group of new-recruit Marine parents and has attended soldiers’ funerals even though she did not know them personally.

Though she supports the war in Iraq, Cox says she was skeptical of the United States going into other countries, like the Sudan, until she spoke with Sam.

"You know he was adamant. He said, ‘No, mom we absolutely need to be there,’" she recalls. "I could see he strongly believes in what we’re doing over there, and it makes me feel more comfortable knowing he believes in what we’re doing."

Sam graduated from Homestead High School in Mequon in 2003. After attending UW-Milwaukee for a semester, he enrolled in the Marines in February 2004. He awaits deployment in Hawaii where he received special training as a helicopter mechanic. And when he gets the call, his parents say they trust he will be OK.

"I trust that he has been trained well, I trust that the guy next to him has been trained well and I trust that if anything were to happen to him that they would take proper care of him," Pattie Cox says.

According to Sharon Kostic, the wife of Lt. Col. Select Andrew Kostic of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment in the Marine Corps., parents often have a harder time staying connected to their children serving overseas. A Marine Corps-organized group, known as the key volunteer network, exists for spouses, but there is not one for parents. After serving as a key volunteer coordinator for a year and a key volunteer adviser for two years, she decided to reach out to parents.

For the past year, Kostic has helped parents of the 1/3 — like Jon Linhart’s parents, Tink and Dick Linhart of Fox Point, — stay connected. And she hopes to get her efforts expanded into a Marine Corps-wide parent network at least while a war is going on.

"I started it and I’m seeing how far I can take it, although I’ve already gotten in trouble for it," she says. "But I don’t care. These parents need support. They (parents) don’t know anyone else going through this and it makes them crazy. I just want to help them find each other."

Since working with the 1/3, Kostic and the other parents have organized to raise more than $100,000, used to buy special biohazard/chemical warfare-equipped camelbacks, a type of water canteen. The group has also sent 7,000 warmers, for the cold months, and 2,000 cool neckties, which help keep troops cooler in the hot desert.

"It helps the parents stay focused," Kostic says of the fund-raising efforts. "And it helps them stay in contact with each other when they need it the most."

A crucial time for parents and spouses of the 1/3 came Jan. 26 when 27 Marines were killed in a helicopter crash.

"It was the hardest two days of my life," Tink Linhart says. "At first it came over that they were Camp Pendleton Marines and then they said they were out of Kanoehe Bay. By then I had realized 24 hours had passed and I knew that if something had happened to Jon then we would have already had a Marine at our door.

"But then I wondered who else lost a child. These were people I talked to via e-mail all the time, they are like family," she says.

The Linharts had already gone through a harrowing time during Jon’s deployment. Tink Linhart had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing treatment.

"You know it was a two-way thing because I was thinking about Jonathan all the time and it was basically like, ‘I don’t have time for this, this is a nuisance,’" she says of the cancer. "I was like, ‘Let’s do the surgery and move on with it.’"

The Linharts spent a lot of time corresponding with parents, surfing the Internet, watching the news and sending packages to the Marines.

In all, the 1/3 would lose 48 Marines during its deployment.

Those were very tense and stressful months, Dick Linhart says.

"It got to the point, where I would tell Tink, ‘Tell your mother not to come over at night,’ because she would knock on the front door," he says. "Because every knock on the door was like, ‘Omigod,’ and in that split second we thought it’s the Marines coming to tell us something happened to Jonathan."

After the helicopter crash, the parents’ group mobilized and came up with an idea of making quilts for the parents and spouses of the fallen. Originally the quilts were supposed to be small hangings, but the project quickly grew by word of mouth and over the Internet.

Today the Linharts’ kitchen and living room are overflowing with quilt squares sent from schoolchildren and grandmothers, relatives of the fallen and even inmates at the Warms Springs Correctional Institute in Nevada. More than 3,000 quilt squares have been donated.

Though Linhart says she does not believe the United States should be in Iraq, her support of the troops has never wavered.

"I can separate the politics and the guys," she says. "This may sound a little odd, but you can be against the war and support the troops. I may not believe we should be in this war, but that’s not going to change my level of support or make me less proud."

As the squares come in, Dick Linhart helps design each quilt, the squares are organized and then off to be stitched together and finished into the final product. Their goal is to finish by Labor Day and present the families of the fallen with the quilts.

"You know two years ago if you had said this was going to happen I would have said no way," he says. "You know you live this nice suburban life and it’s all very easy, and then there is a deployment and death in areas near your son and it all — well all of this becomes meaningless.

"But then you start seeing these quilt squares coming in every day, just stacks of them. And you see the love, you feel the support and you realize that’s what matters."