Wednesday, May 05, 2004

TWO REASONS TO BE AMAZED
One good, the other...not so good.
For about five months, Joan Foglia waged a personal campaign to bring her daughter home safely from Iraq. Every time she bought something with a credit card, she'd pull out a picture of her daughter along with her license.

"I'd say: `I don't know if you pray. If you do, pray for her. If not, keep her in your thoughts,'" Foglia said of her pleas. "I had people say to me, `Oh, I didn't know we still had soldiers there.'"

On Monday, Marissa Foglia's welcome home was filled with family and neighbors. The 22-year-old has been back in the States for three weeks, but Monday was the first day Joan Foglia got to hold her daughter since she volunteered to go to Iraq in September...

The decision to go to Iraq was not a difficult one. She'd only finished basic training about four months before.

"They called us and said, `Do you want to go over as a replacement?' Me and three others said, `Yes,'" she said.

"She said, `If I go, then another solider gets to come home,'" her mother said. "I said, `We all have our paths to travel in life, and if that's your path then you have to go.' I said, `I'll pray for you and watch your back.'"

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