The Mother's Day Project remembers the fallen servicewomen in the current Iraq conflict. I was lucky enough to become involved in this project through blog links, and it has been quite a journey so far.

My soldier, Amy Duerksen, was 19. She was part of the third generation of her family to serve in the US Armed Forces, daughter of an Army chaplain. Before Amy left for boot camp, she toured a Norman Rockwell museum in Vermont. She saw Rockwell's Four Freedoms illustrations, based on a Franklin D. Roosevelt speech about freedom of speech and religion and freedom from want and fear. Amy purchased postcards of the images and had them framed. She was a private first class in the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. On March 8, she was shot in the chest, accidentally. She died March 11, 2006 of injuries sustained in this non-combat incident.,

That is all I know about Amy.

Learning about her has made it all very personal, and brought back the memories of sharing my dinner table with Walter Cronkite and Vietnam as I was growing up. There were death tolls and body counts, and coffins draped with flags, and we knew that people were dying, and that they had names and stories, and families. I wore a POW bracelet so Stanley Newell wouldn't be forgotten. Imagine my surprise when I whacked my wrist on the edge of the table the morning he was released and the bracelet broke in half. I was powerless to stop the war, but I could damn well be sure at least one person was not forgotten before he came home. Here's something we learned from Vietnam, when statistics have names and faces, it's harder for politicians to wage war.

Now, I'm a mom, with a 19 year old of my own. Some of his friends are in Service, both home and abroad, in combat and not. I worry about those kids every day, at a slightly higher pitch than I would if they were, say, away at school. I worry about their friends, too, and I think Amy could have been a friend. Will you remember Amy with me? Think about what she might have grown to be? What she will never have the chance to accomplish?

Here are some pictures of what I stitched. Check out the project link for further information and details.

The original, as received


My concept



The actual