Star-Journbal Editor
As her home phone rang at noon Thursday, the "always-worried" military mom read the caller ID and thought:
This could be a serious call
She'd kept up with the latest news; the fighting in Iraq was heating up again. So Phyllis Richert picked up the phone, said "Hello," and braced herself for the worst.
Since her son, Pete, the distance runner, prankster and patriot with the heart of a hero, was sent to Iraq in April with the Kansas National Guard, his mom, Phyllis, and her church congregation at Ebenfeld Mennonite Church have been building spiritual ramparts of protection for him, in prayer.
Even so, sometimes, as the tide of violence rises, rogue waves of fear have crashed over that wall, leaving Mom drenched and cold, and really, really scared.
But now, with the phone to her ear and The Caller on the line, she feels no fear. No premonitions, dread, or Mother's Intuitions.
So she just listens.
And instead of hearing, "We regret to inform you
The sergeant said her son, Specialist Peter Richert, had been wounded that morning in an explosion, probably caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) while on a mission at an undisclosed location with fellow soldiers from Battery B Unit of the 161st Field Artillery.
"The sergeant told us he'll be coming home before telling us what the specific injury was," Richert said. "One of the first things he said was that Pete was glad to be alive."
The sergeant said one soldier (later identified as Staff Sgt. David Berry of Wichita) had been killed in the blast and several others were injured, two of them critically. Her son was listed in serious but stable condition after emergency surgery to amputate his right leg, just below the knee.
It took awhile for it to sink in:
That Ed and Phyllis Richert's son, newlywed husband to his wife, Krista; father of their new baby, Lindsey; brother to five siblings; a 2002 graduate of Hillsboro High School, and Salem Hospital's official New Year's Baby of 1984, was coming home.
In fact, from Thursday until Saturday, all they knew was that Pete had his right leg amputated below the knee; was at a hospital in Germany; and at some point would be flown to one of three military hospitals in the U.S.
By Saturday, phone calls were being patched through to his hospital room.
"It was something I really needed," Phyllis said. "It's very reassuring when you can talk to your son and you can hear in the tone of his voice that he's the same person.
"He was in pretty good spirits," she added. "He was joking with me. He joked that he wouldn't need as many socks now. Many people couldn't imagine joking about that, but that's the way Pete is. At our house, the Sock Monster always eats one in the washer or dryer, but he said that won't be a problem for him anymore."
Ed and Phyllis aren't bitter, or angry. They feel fortunate, considering.
As of Monday, the U.S. death toll in Iraq had risen to 3,157. There had been 23,417 non-mortal casualties; among them their boy, Pete. An accident like his, losing part of a leg, they said, could have happened anywhere.
"People fall out of bed in the morning; accidents happen," she said. "At least he'll be away from that situation, and that will be a relief.
"It's been hard, but at the same time it still doesn't seem real, probably because he's so far away."
