Jan 12, 2003 By Josh Krysak 7 min read

As Susan Hileman calmly talks about the prospects of a war between the United States and Iraq, the telephone rings. She puts down her iced tea and gets up quickly from the kitchen table of her Lemont Furnace home, her face filled with anticipation, the eyes of her husband, Chuck, and sister Lou Ann Edenfield following her across the room.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says into the receiver as her eyes brighten. “Here, I’m going to give you to your dad.”

“Hi baby,” he says softly. Then it is Lou Ann’s turn. “Hi honey. We are so proud of you.”

The Hilemans’ only child, U.S. Army Spec. Jillian Hileman, is leaving for Kuwait from Fort Bragg, N.C., Sunday. The phone call is a reminder of what is to come, but it is also a way of dealing with the anxiety.

“Right now, I talk to her eight times a day, but if I have to go down to once a week, I’m ready,” Susan said. “It is not really going to be real to me until I get that last phone call when she leaves. This little step in our life is going to mean a lot in decades to come, and Jillian is going to be a part of it.”

Edenfield agrees, but she said that Jillian has been preparing for this her entire life.

“She is very aggressive, and she is ready,” Edenfield said. “She is mentally prepared to go to war.”

As thousands of troops across the country prepare to leave for a possible war with Iraq, many families are experiencing the same emotions and fears the Hilemans are now confronted with.

On Friday, the government officially announced that about 35,000 U.S. troops are preparing to ship out for the Persian Gulf, in the largest single deployment order since the Pentagon began its buildup in the middle east last month.

The troops, which will include two large Marine units, will join thousands of troops already in the Gulf.

While the Hilemans are concerned about their daughter’s safety, they are prepared for anything and are not surprised that Jillian has chosen the life of a solider.

Her grandfather Charles Hileman was a World War II veteran, and her cousin just left for the Air Force.

“This was something I knew from her hobbies of hunting and fishing with her father all these years that something was going to happen,” Susan said.

She said she had a feeling that her daughter could join the military when Jillian was just 7 years old, running around the back yard with fatigues and an army helmet. She said that Jillian really started to consider it when she began baby-sitting for a local recruiter after she graduated from Laurel Highlands in 1999.

Susan said the self-confidence and power captivated Jillian.

Jillian admits that while the local recruiters influenced her decision to join, the military is not for everybody.

“I’ve enjoyed the military a lot. I have learned a lot about myself, but in the military you have got to do what you are told and keep on walking. You have to suck it up and drive on,” she said.

She also admitted that she joined the military thinking she could earn some money for college and see the world, but she never really expected world events to change as they did.

However, her mother thinks she was cut out for the life of a solider.

She said that while she and her daughter share a special bond, Jillian has not had that reliance upon her parents, as many other children do.

“That bond of being with Mom left around 13. She had already spent weeks with the church away,” Susan said.

Jillian joined the military Sept. 18, 2000, almost a year before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She said that the events of that day have solidified the military’s resolve and made the decision to go to war easier.

“They just can’t come over here and bomb us for no reason or just because they don’t like the way our government runs or our religion,” she said. “Ever since then we have really cracked down and started training. We train to fight.”

She said morale is high overall among the 117 troops being deployed from Fort Bragg, and they are behind the decision to go to war.

“We are told to expect war,” she said.

While U.S. allies are urging the Bush administration to allow United Nations weapons inspectors time to do a thorough investigation to see if Saddam Hussein is hiding banned weapons, the United States has reserved the right to act unilaterally to disarm Iraq. But, according to the Associated Press, the president decided last year that he would take America’s allegations before the United Nations, something many world leaders hope will allow the inspections to run their course, even if they take months.

But the Hilemans and their daughter maintain that while war is dangerous, they support the current administration’s stance 100 percent.

“I really feel that whatever he (Bush) chooses to do, he has more people around him helping with decisions than you and I do. I feel whoever is government we should support,” Susan said.

Her husband agreed.

“I think overall our leaders are doing an excellent job,” he said.

When Jillian arrives in Kuwait after a short layover in Turkey, she and the rest of the 126th Transportation Company will go to work doing what they have been training to do for the last two years.

“As all the ships are coming in to port from the branches of the military, we are going to be taking the cargo off the ports and transport it out to the desert where each unit is stationed,” she said.

She will haul food, ammunition and first-aid supplies to the troops in the field, and she might even help keep the trucks running smoothly, something she isn’t required to do but enjoys nonetheless.

According to the Associated Press, U.S. commanders, despite pleas from world leaders to proceed with caution, maintain they would prefer to fight a war in winter rather than summer, as Iraqi temperatures can reach 120 degrees in the deserts and sandstorms sweep much of the country.

The weather in Iraq is something that has been on Jillian’s mind.

“It is going to be hot now and it is going to get hotter because it is the beginning of the summer months,” she said.

While she contemplates the future, her family is focused on the present goal: getting their daughter home.

Her mother plans to go to the Internet for support.

She is an active member of www.militarymoms.com.

But more importantly, she said, she will place her daughter in God’s hands.

“I know she is going to come back. They are going to go in there, they are going to do what they have to do, and then they are going to come back,” she said. “I know that God has his hand on all of our soldiers, and I’m very proud of them. If she gets blown up crossing the streets in Uniontown or wherever she is at, her heart is ready, and if it is her time to go, she will not go alone, because she has the Lord.”

But Susan admits that she does not foresee anything bad happening, and she told her daughter she wants her back.

“The last time we had a personal talk, I told her that I wanted her back and not a flag.”