Rebekkah Henderson Thomas: Just a Soldier

"With three kids raised in this house, I always suspected that one of them might join the military someday," Emily Henderson said, stoically fighting back the tears in her eyes. "I just never thought it would be my little girl."

"When you hold this newborn precious angel in your arms, you never think about her growing up and going off to war," she said.

Tom and Emily Henderson of Marion, Illinois, have two boys. Their oldest, Joab, is a computer engineer in Texas. Their youngest, Caleb, is a student in Marion with his wife and infant daughter. In between, is Rebekkah, the only girl.

Like her brothers, Bekkah knew as she graduated from high school that she wanted to go to college too and how she was going to pay for it. She was sworn in to the Army Reserves before she turned 18, her mother signing the enlistment papers.

That enlistment is good for 8 years, giving Bekkah money to go to college and some monthly income. She has served almost half her enlistment. She expects that while she is overseas, it will be time for her to decide whether to reenlist. At this point, she thinks it is a good option.

Like many young women, Bekkah fell in love and got married. Then, she had a son. William will be two in May, after his mother has left Marion headed overseas. Her unit has requested that she not give out details of her deployment only that she and her unit are headed to a combat zone.

The marriage didn't work out, so Bekkah has spent most of the last year raising Will on her own, with financial and emotional assistance from her parents. Will's father is also a soldier and may also face deployment, so he and Bekkah agreed, the best option for Will was to live with his grandparents while Bekkah is away.

That means at 48, Emily goes from grandma and childcare provider to primary caretaker for a toddler.

"It makes it easier for Bekkah to know that he's here. She knows he will be perfectly safe here. That eases her mind a bit," she said.

Emily is a stonewall, even to close friends, the cracks in the façade are hard to see. In February, as Bekkah, 22, was preparing for her final training before deployment, the battles between mother and daughter were sometimes hairy.