Soldier's wife, mother learns to cope
By the first week of June, the Fenwick Island home Anna Bergman shares with her husband, Jason, and their daughter, Elizabeth, should be just about empty. For nearly three years, they have shared the rented home. Now, Anna hopes to be moved out by June 8.
Anna Bergman is the wife of National Guardsman Jason Bergman, who will be shipped to Iraq next month.She and Elizabeth, a 9-year-old Phillip C. Showell student who will just be getting out of school in early June, plan to move into a house in Cambridge, Md., near where Anna grew up – without Jason.
That’s because, on June 8, Jason Bergman will be just 10 days shy of leaving for Iraq and the war.
“When he leaves, it turns everything upside down,” Anna Bergman said earlier this week. “While he’s gone there, I’m going to have to move back to Maryland. I don’t have any family down here.”
In mid-April, the Bergmans were notified that Jason, a four-year Fenwick Island police officer, would be deployed with the 153rd National Guard Military Police Unit out of Delaware City, to Iraq.
His deployment, part of President George W. Bush’s “surge” plan to help stabilize the anything-but-stable country, should last 12 months.
In that time, Anna, whose story is familiar to many military families, wives and mothers – both locally and across the country – will learn to cope with the worry and the extra responsibility of taking care of a family while one partner is deployed.
“There’s a lot to deal with,” said Anna this week.
Normally, for instance, Jason picks Elizabeth up from school each day and takes her home before Anna returns from Salisbury, Md. – about a 35-minute drive – where she works what she calls not a normal “9-5” job.
“‘Big Daddy,’ as she calls him, took care of her,” Anna said, adding that if Elizabeth is mad at her father, she just calls him “J.”
But “Big Daddy” won’t be picking Elizabeth up for school for a while – not for 12 months.
Picking Elizabeth up from school, getting her to school in the morning, dressing her, taking her to the doctor in the middle of the day – for 12 months, Anna, who will admittedly have some help, will cope.
Elizabeth should be in a Christian day-camp throughout the summer, and the Bergmans bought a home not far from Anna’s parents, in Cambridge, from whom she will receive some help. But, as Anna noted Tuesday, her mother “already baby-sits for my brothers’ three kids.” Ultimately, Anna the mother, and worker, will learn to juggle responsibilities as both parents.
“We pretty much have everything. Everything is stable in our lives,” said Anna of the family’s current circumstances. She said she will now have to leave work early more often, and find an after-school camp. “We’re uprooting her from her school again. It’s just a lot to deal with.”
Anna noted Tuesday that, while their daughter does not understand all of the specifics, she understands the magnitude of her father’s mission. Elizabeth watches television, her mother said.
And Jason, who also said this week that “separation from the family” is the hardest part of leaving for the war, does his best to explain.
“She was very, very upset when she found out,” Anna said Tuesday as she prepared Elizabeth and her classmates for a field trip. “She watches the news, and she’s afraid that he’s not coming back.”
But, as she will likely do many times in the coming months, Anna consoles her daughter – and likely herself – by conveying the importance of “Big Daddy’s” mission, without mentioning the importance of her own.
“Jason has explained to her why he has to go and what he has to do. He’s protecting her over there so people don’t come over here,” Anna said, adding that the holidays will be the hardest to deal with. “(But) I don’t want him going over there. I want it over as soon as possible.”