A Town Prays for a Son’s Deliverance

BATAVIA, Ohio -- Long before her own son was deployed to Iraq, Carolyn Maupin organized an Armed Forces Support Group in this small town on the southern fringe of Ohio.

Through the fall and winter, she and a dozen other relatives of soldiers met each month to plan care packages of Pop Tarts, Pringles and Cincinnati’s famous Gold Star Chili. They shared letters from their sons and brothers in uniform

Best of all, they shared videos. Some of the soldiers shot their own tapes in Iraq: footage of themselves visiting schools, or tossing candy to kids, or simply reassuring their mothers they were safe. When one of those tapes arrived in the mail, everyone would gather to watch.

The Armed Forces Support Group gathered again Saturday with a very different video looping through every mind: the tape of Army Pfc. Keith Matthew Maupin, 20, surrounded by masked gunmen, his face pale and shadowed with stubble, his eyes cast down, his jaw clenching as he bit his lower lip.

“I look at Matt in that video and I see a child,” said Mia Supe, whose brother recently returned from Iraq. “When I see those bad guys around him, I ... “

She stopped and shook her head.

“I just can’t,” she said. “I have to stay positive.”

“He’s alive, and that’s what we’re focusing on,” David Stultz reminded the group.

“We know what could be happening to Matt,” another member, Karen Flinn, said. “But we’re not going to think about it at all.”

Flinn’s voice was resolute. Her eyes looked wet. Her son, Spc. Christopher Flinn, was supposed to come home next month after a year in Baghdad. She had tickets to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game for him -- the front row, behind home plate. She learned last week his tour had been extended 120 days.

Despite their fears, members of the support group were immensely relieved when the video of Maupin surfaced on an Arab TV network on Friday. His captors said on tape that they would treat him well; they want to trade him for Iraqi prisoners being held by the U.S.-led coalition.

Friends took comfort as well in reminding one another that at least three dozen foreign citizens captured in Iraq over the last two weeks have been released unharmed. Only one, an Italian security guard, is known to have been killed by his captors.

“I don’t think they’d hurt Matt, now that they’ve shown the world that he’s alive,” said Mike Fehr, a custodian at Glen Este High School, where Maupin played football and made honors grades. “The video makes me feel a lot better.”

An Army Reservist serving in the 724th Transportation Co., Maupin had been missing since April 9, when his fuel convoy was attacked outside Baghdad.

The day before he was captured, Maupin’s mother had told the support group, with relief, that her son was no longer driving fuel trucks. He had been assigned instead as a gunner, riding atop the Humvees that protect the convoys.

“She was so proud of him because she felt like he had been promoted, and she was happy because she thought he wouldn’t be such a big target,” Supe said. The group rejoiced with her.

“I told her he’d be safer there,” Supe recalled. “What did I know.”

Another soldier from the same company -- Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C. -- also went missing in the ambush on April 9.

One of Krause’s childhood friends, speaking from her home in Texas, called him a “wonderful father” to his 9-year-old son and said he was proud to be in the Army. “He would have done anything to help his country out,” said Katie Elizalda, who grew up with Krause in Vallejo, Calif.

Other friends and relatives were reluctant to talk, for fear of endangering Krause.

Many of Maupin’s friends also hesitated to disclose personal information that his captors might somehow use against him.

They said only that he was taking courses at a local college before his deployment and that his family has a strong tradition of military service. His father served in the Marines; his younger brother, Micah, is due to graduate from his advanced Marine Corps training course Saturday, though he has come home to be with his family.

The family has not commented since Maupin’s convoy was attacked. They are consoling one another in their trim ranch house, with an Army stress-management team providing support. So many yellow ribbons flock their lawn that from afar, it looks like a field of tulips.

More yellow ribbons flutter from across this anxious community of 1,600 -- from trees, street signs, mailboxes, front porches. Prayers for Maupin and vows of support for all U.S. troops are posted in the pizza parlor, the florist’s and on a huge banner outside city hall.

Many residents wear buttons with Maupin’s image -- not the frightened one from the video, but a face-forward, jaw-out, steely-eyed shot of him in uniform, in front of an American flag. On Friday, hundreds attended a prayer vigil at the football field. On Saturday, supporters delivered a refrigerator to the Maupin house to hold some of the casseroles, pastries and deli trays that friends brought over.

“I don’t know if it’s because he’s local or what, but I just feel a real personal connection to him,” said Melia Calvert, a local resident struck by the outpouring of support for the family

“It’s close. It’s real close,” responded Jenee McConnell, who was working the counter at Earl’s Market, down the street from the Maupin home.

Her son, Spc. Timothy Wilson, went to high school with Maupin and is now serving with the Army in Iraq. Since he was deployed near Fallouja, his mother said, she cannot bear to watch the news.

But she did steel herself to study the video of Maupin in captivity. It did not reassure her.

“They say he looks well. They say he’s not showing fear. But you look into his eyes and you can see it,” McConnell said. “As a mother, you know what’s going on. He’s just a 20-year-old boy.”

When Matt Maupin was preparing to leave for Iraq in mid-February, the support group gave his mother three rules to help her chase away the dread: Keep busy. Don’t believe everything you see on TV. Most important, stay positive -- and make sure Matt does too.

“She was extremely fearful for him,” Flinn said.

“But then her faith would al-ways pop up and she would say she knew the Lord would protect him,” Supe added.

“We told her to make sure Matt knows he’s a hero, that he’s been trained by the best and he is the best,” Flinn said. “We told her to fill his heart and his mind with that.”

They are all, now, sending Matt Maupin that same message, through their prayers.

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Times staff writer Cynthia Daniels in Los Angeles contributed to this report.