To daughters, she’s Sgt. Mom

What soldier wants to go to war with Mom?

It’s not tough, or particularly cool. And it doesn’t exactly fulfill the Spartan vision of the warrior ethos, especially if Mom starts ordering you to finish your green beans or clean up your barracks, or suddenly whips out some embarrassing childhood photos.

No wonder Chandra and LaShawn Miller, specialists with the D.C. Army National Guard, balked when their mother announced that she was transferring to their unit, the 547th Transportation Company, and deploying to Iraq with them.

To the daughters, the news was worse than having Mom chaperon a first date.

“I told her to stay home and bake cookies,” Chandra said of her mother, Sgt. Marcia Reid.

The prospect of losing her in combat would be like “losing my whole world,” Chandra said.

Reid considered staying home, spending the year doting on her grandchildren and working at her information technology job. But Reid is a soldier and a mother -- and two of her four daughters were headed for Iraq. “If they were to get hurt, I would much rather be with them,” she said.

Though Chandra, 21, and LaShawn, 20, are grown, Reid had raised them almost single-handedly and couldn’t help but still think of them as her babies.

Now they’d be Over There, among the bombs and the bullets, 6,000 miles and several time zones away. So Reid, a former Marine with a penchant for action, decided to join them.

In February, the 48-year-old from suburban Landover, Md., was reassigned to the 547th, where she is now known in the ranks as “Mama Reid.”

Her daughters pleaded with her to stay home. “If your mom is going, you have to worry about her all the time,” Chandra said.

But Mom rules. Especially when she outranks you.

The 547th recently shipped out to Camp Shelby, Miss., for several weeks of pre-deployment training. They could be headed for Iraq sometime in June.

Reid and her daughters aren’t the only ones in the unit who share more than just the bonds that come with combat. It’s a phenomenon that officials say could happen only in the reserves, whose units typically comprise soldiers from the same area.

That’s especially true in rural communities “where people tend to bring their friends and relatives in,” said Randy Noller, a spokesman for the National Guard. “But to pack all those family members into one unit is unusual.”

After five brothers, the Sullivans from Iowa, were killed when their ship was hit by a torpedo and sunk during World War II, Congress made several attempts to limit family members from serving in a unit together, but none became law, according to Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk, a Pentagon spokesman. There is no Defense Department policy prohibiting family members from serving together.

There are benefits to deploying with relatives.

“It makes it easier for me,” said Sgt. Andrew Williams, whose brother-in-law, Pfc. Edwin Liriano, is also in the 547th. “I know for a fact someone’s got my back.”

But it’s harder for his wife, and Liriano’s sister, Rosanna Williams. “What if something happens and I lose both of them?” she said.

Reid promised she would not hover. Being able to catch glimpses of her daughters, even from afar, is enough. She’ll know everything she needs to, she said, with one look at their faces. And there will be a huge relief at the end of each day “to make sure they have 10 toes, 10 fingers.”

“I keep my ears open and eyes open, and I look like I’m not paying attention. That’s what I do” when they’re in uniform together, she said. “But trust me, when I hear their voices, I’m tuning into where they are.”

And Chandra and LaShawn have to learn that in the Army, Mom isn’t always Mom. “They asked me if I had seen their mother, and I said, ‘You mean Sgt. Reid?’ ” said 1st Sgt. Terrance Smith.

As a mother -- and a sergeant -- Reid isn’t one to tolerate mess or lateness. Profanity and smoking are strictly forbidden. And when she gets mad, she turns into a drill instructor: “Her face turns red, her nose flares, she puts her hands on her hips and starts pacing,” LaShawn said.

Reid never pushed the military on her daughters, she said. Indeed, her two eldest, now 23 and 29, wanted nothing to do with the armed forces, and now worry that their children will miss their grandmother while she’s at war.

But in 2005, Reid found herself missing the camaraderie of the service and enlisted. Then her daughters did too, drawn by the benefits, particularly the college tuition money. But “I really joined because Mom was doing it,” LaShawn said.

It’s not clear yet what they’ll face in Iraq. Out on the road providing convoy security, a transportation company could have one of the most dangerous assignments. Reid and her daughters are training for the worst: ambushes and roadside bombs, and the reality that they are going to war has started to sink in.

Reid joked recently that at her age she was nervous that she might not pass the physical and therefore would be ineligible for deployment.

“No, no, you have to clear medical,” her daughters protested. “You have to go. You have to.”

“Wait,” Reid said, “I thought you didn’t want me to go.”

But maybe they weren’t so sure about that anymore. Maybe there were some benefits to having Mom around after all.