Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Two mothers, united in sadness over a fallen soldier, attended a pre-Mother's Day luncheon last week at the White House.
But the event, poignant as it was, turned out to be only half the story of this memorable trip.
Barb Yllescas of Treynor, Iowa, and Bev Gissler of Osceola, Neb., the mother and mother-in-law of the late Capt. Rob Yllescas, traveled together to Washington, D.C.
They were among 100 mothers with military ties honored last Friday by first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of the vice president.
By coincidence, the event occurred days after the killing of terrorist Osama bin Laden. Barb's son had predicted that would happen.
“Robert kept saying, ‘We're going to get him,'” Barb recalled. “He always said we'd find bin Laden.”
President Obama couldn't attend the luncheon Friday because he was away thanking the U.S. raiders who pulled off the mission in Pakistan. The first lady, Barb said, “was elegant, beautiful and sincere.”
The president's wife thanked those attending — Gold Star mothers such as Barb as well as mothers with sons or daughters overseas, young mothers about to be deployed and other moms like Bev.
Barb wears her gold star, signifying that her son had died in war, on a necklace. While on a private tour of the White House before the luncheon, she recalled visiting there years earlier on a public tour with her four children, three of whom later served in the military.
Rob had served two tours in Iraq and was on a third in Afghanistan when mortally wounded by an IED in October 2008. Doctors tried to save his life. Barb and Bev flew to a military hospital in Germany with Rob's wife, Dena, who lives in Lincoln.
The captain lived just over a month, part of it after he was transferred to a military hospital in Bethesda, Md. His legs were amputated, and he suffered from a head injury. Then-President George W. Bush met Dena on Veterans Day and presented Rob with a Purple Heart.
A graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Capt. Rob Yllescas died at 31 and was buried in Osceola. Dena is raising their daughters, Julia, 9, and Eva, 3.
The White House event was bittersweet and memorable, and Barb and Bev were grateful to meet many kind people. But something happened on the way home that, in its own way, made a similar impact.
Their first flight Saturday from Reagan International landed at O'Hare in Chicago, where they saw a Marine getting off their plane in a wheelchair — his legs had been amputated. His young wife was carrying their infant and trying to handle a stroller. Things were falling.
Barb Yllescas no longer could help her own son, but for a moment or two she could help another mother's son. She downplays what she did, simply helping the young couple pick up some things and get to their next flight.
“I was crying,” she said, “so a lot of help I was. But I remember flying with children, what a commotion it is. My heart went out to them. This poor young Marine was in his 20s, with a pretty, young wife and a cute little baby not even a year old.
“The wife said, ‘People don't understand.' I could picture my boy without his legs. I said, ‘You're right, people don't understand.'”
Barb said she didn't do much in that brief encounter. But seeing the young family was a reminder, she said, that more and more military personnel are surviving with severe injuries, physical and otherwise, and will have difficult years ahead.
“Just saying ‘Thank you for your service' is great,” she said, “but we should really look for opportunities to help our wounded warriors and their families.”
We all know that our military and their families carry a great burden, and we are grateful for all that they do. But do we really understand?
Long after our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines accomplish their missions, we at least should understand that our mission — to help them — is far from over.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1132, michael.kelly@owh.com
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