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.

STORY BY DON CONKEY
THE PATRIOT LEDGER

MARSHFIELD

When soldiers are home on leave from war, their loved ones get a vacation, too. Time off from the worrying. Marilyn O'Hearn knows all about it. When the youngest of her two daughters came home from Iraq recently for a two-week leave, O'Hearn was able to exhale.

"It was nice knowing that she was safe," she said. "Just knowing that she was (safe) was wonderful."

Spc. Sarah O'Hearn is a military police officer serving in Baghdad.

Sarah's unit left for Iraq in July. Aside from the two-week leave, she's been working non-stop in the war zone. It was on Jan. 6 that she returned home for that two-week leave.

"It was a huge surprise. I wasn't expecting her until February," her mother said. "Everybody knew that she was coming home but me."

O'Hearn's other daughter Melissa was in on the surprise. She woke up her mother early on a Sunday morning and got her out of bed, saying, "Mom, I have something to show you, get up quick!"

Marilyn O'Hearn said she jumped out of bed, headed into the living room, "and I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. And there was Sarah, standing there."

The emotion flowed freely.

"I couldn't stop hugging and kissing her," Marilyn said. "It was a very nice surprise."

Sarah, who turned 23 in September, spent her time at home re-connecting with family and friends.

Sarah didn't talk much about Iraq while she was home, her mother said, and she didn't press her. Whatever she's encountered over there has changed her, Marilyn said.

"She's grown up a lot ... She has matured," she said.

Sarah O'Hearn is serving in Iraq with the 772nd Military Police Company, which attached to Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts National Guard.

Sarah graduated from Marshfield High School in 2003. She worked several different jobs after high school, including working at Rexhame General Store in Marshfield and Leo's Bakery. In 2004, she joined the National Guard and began work as a recruiter.

Marilyn said her daughter has always been "very loving, very generous, very kind."

But those traits were magnified during her visit home.

"It was different now," Marilyn said. "Like constantly coming over and hugging me, kissing me out of the blue."

Sarah's military police unit is scheduled to end its year-long deployment in May. But there is no guarantee it won't be extended.

Marilyn had thought that saying goodbye to her daughter this time, after her visit home, would be more difficult than it was in July when she shipped out to Mississippi for training.

She was wrong.

"It was tough to say goodbye again, but not as hard as the first time," Marilyn said.

She is not quite sure why.

"I mean, I cried. But it was nothing like the first time. Maybe it's because I just felt better about her," she said.

"And, I'm more relaxed now than I was before Sarah came home," she said. She figures its because of what she saw in Sarah this time, a mature, confidant young woman.

"I don't feel quite as nervous. But, the worry will always be there. There's nothing that is going to change that," Marilyn added.

Her unit, the 772nd Military Police Company, attached to Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts National Guard, was deployed in May.

They trained at Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg, Miss.

O'Hearn's unit has been serving in and around Baghdad, Iraq since July.

They are scheduled to return home in May.

O'Hearn graduated from Marshfield High School in 2003.

She turned 23 on Sept. 25.

Her mother, Marilyn O'Hearn, and sister, Melissa O'Hearn, 31, are back home in Marshfield, waiting for her return.