*A MOM'S INTERNAL STRUGGLE WHEN HER SON ENLISTS (9/20/04)

A MOM'S INTERNAL STRUGGLE WHEN HER SON ENLISTS
SEPI000020040921e09k0000s
Life And Arts
SUSAN PAYNTER P-I COLUMNIST
1097 Words
20 September 2004
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
FINAL
E1
English
Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.
ALEX SIDLES CALLED home to Seattle from Iraq last week with some good news and some not so good.

The 21-year-old Marine told his mother, Connie, that he'd lost his foot. Part of it, anyway. But the doctors said it was "a wonderful amputation." And he still has his ankle.

More of the foot was amputated on Thursday. But with a prosthetic, he should have a functional foot again, he said.

A lot of American moms are getting phone calls like that, and worse these days.

As a mom to whom scary is the looming prospect of a teen's driver's license, I wondered how Connie has handled it all, so I asked.

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