Mom greets one son, while another deployed

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004 | 11:34 a.m.

After a year of anxiety and time spent scanning the news for any mention of her son's Army division, Virginia Castillo spotted her son coming down the escalator at McCarran International Airport Wednesday night.

"Oh my God, he's here," she shouted before leaping into his arms.

A crowd of friends and family members, many of whom drove from Arizona and California, cheered, waved flags and surrounded their new hero, Sgt. Nicholas Kruthoff, a 26-year-old Army Ranger who has been nominated for a Bronze Star for his service during his year in Iraq.

"It's overwhelming," he said, surrounded by three dozen people.

Castillo can breathe a sigh of relief. Her son, whom she worried about, is home with family. But her relief for her son will soon be replaced by anxiety for another son, Paul, an Army specialist, who is shipping out to Iraq on Monday.

"They are sending me one and taking the other away," Castillo said. "They put me through one year and now they are going to put me through another four to six months."

It's a difficult time for a family with a belief in military service. Family members are now torn by emotion -- proud of a son who served well, worried about another son and concerned about the war.

Kruthoff's father, Greg, noted the family's history with serving in the military.

Greg Kruthoff and Castillo, who are now divorced, met while he was stationed as an Army medic in Germany and she was working for the Army there as a civilian. Their sons enlisted within a few weeks of each other in May 2000.

"One comes home, one takes his place, and we are proud of both of them," Greg Kruthoff said. "The family has always served and Nick and Paul are also serving their country."

Wednesday was a long-overdue moment for Kruthoff, who was in Iraq in the initial days of the war and expected to be home within a few months. Three times his orders were extended.

Paul, a specialist stationed in Naples, Italy, had planned to fly to Las Vegas to welcome his brother home until last week, when he received orders he would be shipping out to Iraq Monday for a four-month stint.

But the goodbyes to one son were not going to dampen the joy of the other's return.

Castillo breathed a sigh of relief as she watched her son hug his father and his sister Tanya McPherson, who introduced "Uncle Nick" to his newborn nephew, Jack. Next in line was Kruthoff's niece, Madeline, whom he had not seen since the day after she was born, having left for boot camp immediately after.

"It feels so good to be home," Kruthoff said after the crowd had somewhat dispersed. "When you are away for so long from your family, and you call them and they say the kids are getting big, you don't realize how big until you see them."

Castillo says she has been a nervous wreck for the last year, breaking into tears at times when she would see headlines of soldiers dying in Iraq.

The mantra "He's doing good things" helped to alleviate her anxiety, Castillo said.

Castillo said she would search the Fayetteville Observer, a North Carolina newspaper that covers her son's home base of Fort Bragg, online every day for news of Kruthoff's division, but then she had difficulty reading the stories out of fear of what she might find.

The worst stories were those that detailed how soldiers had died but that withheld the identities pending notification of the families.

"Every time I read the paper and saw the 'name withheld,' I would think, 'No, it's not mine, but it's gotta be some other mother's,' " Castillo said as she wrapped things up Monday afternoon in her Hollingworth Elementary classroom, where she is a kindergarten teacher. "It's a horrible thing to feel when you want it to be someone else's pain and not yours."

Earlier that day Castillo's voice had welled up as she read a story to her students about a bear cub who returned home to his mother after getting lost.

"Look at the mom, hugging her son," Castillo told her students. "Oh, thank goodness my baby's back."

The hardest part of the last year were the long months after the war, family members said, when news reports slowed and when Kruthoff often went weeks without being able to call.

"It's like checkpoints," Tanya McPherson, of Riverside, Calif., said as the family anticipated Kruthoff's homecoming Wednesday afternoon at Castillo's Sun City Anthem home. "You hear from him and you are like 'whew,' and then you have to wait again until the next phone call to know he's OK."

Kruthoff was nominated for a Bronze Star after he and his fellow men helped secure supply lines for the Third Infantry Division near As Samawah, Iraq.

His division, the 82nd Airborne, secured several key towns along the main supply route to Baghdad and engaged in some of the heaviest fighting of the war, Capt. Leo Coddington wrote in a letter to Kruthoff's father.

The division uncovered several large caches of ammunition, captured former Baath Party members that were attacking coalition forces and guarded the United Nations compound after it was attacked in August 2003, Coddington wrote. The division also helped rebuild infrastructure such as schools and roads.

Family members said the division's successes were a source of both fear and pride, as they worried about Kruthoff's safety and relished his accomplishments.

"He's something else," grandfather Al Castillo said, beaming at Kruthoff and admitting he had cried earlier. "Just knowing everyday that he was over there, waiting for the news, knowing he was right in the thick of it. And then he lost two of his best buddies and it could have been him -- we were just praying to God the whole time."

In January, two of Kruthoff's close friends died when a rebel insurgent attacked their convoy. Kruthoff, a squad leader, had to write letters telling their families of their deaths. Kruthoff leaves Las Vegas Saturday for New Jersey to attend a memorial service for one of the men.

"That was the hardest on him," Dan McPherson, Kruthoff's brother-in-law, said. "He was not worried about coming home in a box, it was more fear that one of his men might be killed."

Family said Kruthoff's men always came first for him, and that Kruthoff would often give up leaves or phone calls home if he thought someone else needed it more.

Family members were unabashed in praising Kruthoff and all of the soldiers serving in Iraq, but several also expressed frustrations with why American soldiers were sent to fight in the first place.

"As a mom, with what my kid has gone through, no, (the war) wasn't justified," Castillo said. "Too many young men died."

Castillo also said she worries about the long-term psychological effects on her son, as he has already told her there are some things he can't talk about -- and not for national security reasons.

"It hurts me that he has to feel that way, that he had to experience some things that he can't talk to me about," Castillo said. "I hope he doesn't have to hold that in him all his life."

Kruthoff's uncle, Gil Castillo, said the misinformation about the reasons for the war left him with "mixed emotions" about whether it was justified.

"I'm just grateful that my nephew is coming home, that Nick survived it," Gil Castillo said Wednesday afternoon.

Only Kruthoff's father said the war and its aftermath was a necessary evil.

"Something needed to be done," Greg Kruthoff said. "It is too bad our sons had to be the ones to do it."

Both parents said they are scared that Kruthoff, who recently re-enlisted while in Iraq and is scheduled to go to Germany this summer, will be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

But both also said they support Kruthoff's choice and say he is doing what he is destined to do.

His sister expressed the family sentiment best.

"He's good at what he does, he's a leader," Tanya McPherson said. "We'd rather he be a mailman, but ... we're proud."

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