Three South Shore families with loved ones serving in the Massachusetts National Guard agreed to let Patriot Ledger readers follow their lives at home while those loved ones serve in Iraq. This is part of an occasional series on those families as they live, cope, love and wait.

In Our Thoughts

Youth hockey team takes shot at boosting morale of soldier from Marshfield serving in Iraq

LISA BUL/The Patriot Ledger

The Boston Mission, a team of 11-year-old hockey players, with coach Garry Garland of Scituate. The team has sent care packages to Sarah O’Hearn of Marshfield, a soldier serving in Iraq.

STORY BY DON CONKEY
THE PATRIOT LEDGER

SCITUATE

GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger

This photo of Marilyn O’Hearn inspired Bridget Garland to find a way to help a fellow mother.

Bridget Garland was riveted to the front-page picture of her South Shore neighbor. She had never met the woman in the photograph, but the image of Marilyn O'Hearn staring out the window of her Marshfield home got Garland thinking.

The photograph was part of The Patriot Ledger's "War on the Homefront" series about three South Shore families with loved ones serving with the Massachusetts National Guard in Iraq. O'Hearn's youngest daughter, Sarah, 22, had been in the war zone since July.

"You could just see the stress on her face, the loneliness. It looked so sad," Garland said of the photo of Marilyn O'Hearn. "There was that sense of loss, of her daughter not being there. You could see the toll it was taking on her."

That's when Garland decided to try to ease some of O'Hearn's pain by showing support for Sarah O'Hearn.

Garland's son, Conor, plays for the Boston Mission independent traveling hockey team, and her husband, Garry, is the coach.

The team is made up of 11-year-olds from towns all over the South Shore, including Scituate, where the Garlands live, Hingham, Pembroke, Braintree and Whitman.

LISA BUL/The Patriot Ledger

Parent and coaches wife, Bridget Garland, of Scituate, organized the care package effort after reading about Sarah O'Hearn in the Patriot Ledger.

Since November, team members and their parents have been putting together care packages for troops overseas. After Garland saw the picture of Marilyn O'Hearn, Spc. Sarah O'Hearn was added to the list of recipients.

GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger

Marilyn O'Hearn of Marshfield holds a picture of her daughter Sarah.

Marilyn O'Hearn was thrilled to hear it.

"It's really nice," she said. "Sometimes you feel like you have kind of been forgotten."

Spc. O'Hearn, who serves with the 772nd Military Police Company, attached to Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment, hasn't received the two packages the boys sent her. They could be waiting for her when she returns to Iraq next week after two weeks at home on leave.

Marilyn O'Hearn said her daughter's brief visit has been joyful, but she knows the worry and anxiety will return as soon as Sarah is on the plane headed back to the war.

Don Conkey may be reached at dconkey@ledger.com.