Deliverer Of Sad News From Iraq
In Part 2 of CBS News Correspondent David Martin's series on tight-knit military communities, we meet a man who has one of the toughest jobs in the military: delivering that news.
An afternoon game of soccer is about as Middle American as it gets. But when you hear what's on the minds of the wives at Fort Irwin, Calif., you realize these are not your average soccer moms.
"You get the phone call and you just cringe and say, 'Oh please let it be an injury and not a death," says Jill Cone.
Eight phone calls have brought word of eight deaths to Cone, the wife of the base commander at the home of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.
The wives agree there's a sense of dread hanging over this community and "over any community that has their soldiers deployed."
With most of the troops of the 11th Cavalry in Iraq, Lt. Col. Frank Wenzel is the unit's senior officer at Fort Irwin. With that title comes awful responsibility.
"I am the one, yeah, that tells that family, in most cases being a wife, that her husband has made the sacrifice," says Wenzel.
It's got to be about the worst job any human being has to do.
"Walking up the sidewalk, anyone would hope (and) wish that they could be doing something else," he says. "On the other hand, I wouldn't want anyone else to do it."
It was Wenzel who delivered the awful news to Laurel Frank.
"Col. Wenzel came to my door," she says. "That's a hard job to have, and he's a very wonderful person. I think that God blesses us by blessing him with the ability to be able to handle that situation."
It's been a little more than a month since Frank's husband, Stephen, was killed by a roadside bomb, leaving her a 26-year-old widow with a 2-year-old son.
She says her friend Amy Baylog is the one person she couldn't have made it without.
Baylog, the wife of another officer in the 11th Cavalry, feels Laurel Frank's loss almost as if it were her own.
When asked what her friend has done for her, Laurel Frank says: "What hasn't she done?"
For all their support of each other, the women of Fort Irwin feel isolated - and by more than just the desert, which surrounds this base.
They don't think the rest of the country really understands what it really means to a military community to lose people.
"I think many times we do feel like nobody cares," says Kay Wenzel. "You know, do they really know what our lives are like and especially when the loss has been so great."
There aren't many soccer moms in the rest of America who have to worry about when the next memorial service will be.
Part 1: Death In Iraq Touches Entire Town