Looming deployment casts fear over Marines' families
Next spring, Denise Barone's only son will leave Mason - most likely for Iraq - trading a world of certainty and safety for one of confusion and danger. (1/24)
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051028/NEWS01/510280354/1001/NEWS
By T.M. Shultz
Lansing State Journal
Next spring, Denise Barone's only son will leave Mason - most likely for Iraq - trading a world of certainty and safety for one of confusion and danger.
Her son, Lance Cpl. Jason Roenicke, 21, and more than 100 other men from Lansing's Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, expect to get their orders as early as January. They could leave in May or June.
"It's very hard," Barone said as she stood inside the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center on Saginaw Street during Charlie Company's recent Family Day.
"He wants to help things be better in the world and not just sit around doing nothing," Barone explained. "I feel extremely proud for that, but I'm also extremely afraid."
She isn't alone.
Other parents have been through this before.
Richard Ochoa of Muskegon said this tour will be the second for his son, Lance Cpl. Jonathan Ochoa, 21.
Waiting out his son's first deployment was incredibly difficult: "I felt like I was going to go out of my mind."
But his son thought he could do some good in Iraq.
"He has a heart for protecting people," his father explained.
Find out more about how the families are handling the impending departure in Saturday's Lansing State Journal.