In Iraq for the Holidays

December 24, 2008
By Bob Jones

WITH KIDS IN IRAQ, LYNN VASQUEZ DELA CERNA COLLECTS RUBBER SLIPPERS FOR THE NEEDY

This Christmas Day, 52-year-old Lynn Vasquez-Dela Cerna of Kalihi can be expected to offer up her usual prayer: "God, just send my babies home to me."

Her "babies" are all in Iraq or going to Iraq or just back from Iraq. A son, two daughters, a stepson and a son-in-law.

Most of us haven't been asked to make any sacrifices for this almost-six-year-old war. Then we have the the Hawaii National Guard, the 25th Infantry Division and the Kaneohe Marine 3rd Expeditionary Regiment and 1st Radio Battalion. And the spouses, moms and dads of all who went and those who died or came home shattered.

"Aunty Lynn" is giving most of her family. She really should be on the cover of a national news magazine.

Her son is Stryker Brigade Staff Sgt. Conrad Vasquez. He's on his second tour in Iraq from Schofield Barracks. He was wounded by shrapnel on his first tour, and also did one tour in Afghanistan. Conrad went into the Army right out of McKinley High School.

One daughter, Christy Avilla, is going to Iraq next month with the Hawaii Air National Guard security police from Hickam Air Force Base. She's a Honolulu police officer.

Daughter Ligaya did 15 months with Army military intelligence in Iraq. Got her picture taken with Gov. Linda Lingle. She was there the same time as her brother Conrad.

Ligaya's husband, Justin Hartman, has been in Iraq since October. He's an Army sergeant who remotely flies those drones that film and attack. Calls himself a "space pilot."

Ligaya e-mails: "Justin and I both served with the 1st Armored Division based out of Germany in 2003-2004. We both were deployed throughout Baghdad for 15 months. He was a ground surveillance systems operator, and I worked in Division Headquarters. Justin is based out of Schofield Barracks with the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. He re-classed in 2005 to get a new specialty as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle operator/pilot. We arrived in Hawaii in 2006, and he deployed that summer less than a week after our daughter Kiana was born. He returned when she was 15 months old.

"He deployed to Iraq for his third time this past fall and is on orders for a full year. He just re-enlisted this past week for another four years in the military."

Then there's Lynn's stepson Justin Dela Cerna with the Hawaii Army National Guard. He goes to Kuwait and Iraq next month as an infantryman.

You have to wonder how much of a war one family should have to bear. But, of course, they're all volunteers, not draftees. And not one of them is trying to dodge the duty, refusing to go or making a fuss that the war is wrong.

Obviously, it worries Lynn sick. "I don't like the war," she says, "but we also have a war right here. The dark side of the street. The drugs. The illegal things."

And she feels the military has made her kids better people.

"My son is a soldier's soldier," she says. "When one of his buddies was killed, he didn't come home right away when he could have. He went to the man's hometown to see the family. He's married to the Army."

He also recently got married to the woman in his life.

"The military has made my children outstanding children," Lynn says.

Does never knowing when there might be an unwelcome knock on her door trouble her?

"I'm supposed to be used to it," she says, "but I'm not."

Lynn was previously married to the late Conrado "Boy" Vasquez, a boxing champion in the Philippines and California. He died in 1989. She's been through a stroke (two years in a wheelchair), homelessness (Kokea shelter) and bringing up kids in Mayor Wright housing. She has lots of computer skills but has had a hard time finding a good, permanent job. She takes what she can find.

"But you know, my kids never gave up on me despite those health problems," she says.

In June of this year she married P.K. Dela Cerna, an inspector for the Terminix pest control company.

"My mind is occupied looking for a job. I have to help my husband. Stocks are losing money. Black October and the past weeks took a big chunk out of our finances. But my honey still smiles. He's like that. Nothing gets him down. He worries about me."

She's sure not been inactive. She's a volunteer with the Kau Kau Wagon that feeds the homeless on Saturdays.

And one of her ongoing works is as founder of the Slippah Project. That raises money to buy rubber slippers for needy kids, mainly in the housing projects. Last year it collected 3,000 pair and she hopes for at least that many this time at Christmas.

This year's recipients will be: Mayor Wright Housing, Kahumanu and Kamehameha Housing, Kuhio Park Terrace, Palolo Housing, Institute for Human Services, Waianae, Leeward and Kauai homeless shelters, and the Barbers Point shelter if enough money comes in. This is her project's fourth year, and somehow she manages to handle it all while working some part-time jobs, dishwasher or security guard.

She says: "My passion is to help and better my community. I have no kala (money), but what I have is heart. I want to have the opportunity to be the voice of those in our society who often have been forgotten or silenced through the hardships of life.

"I can understand life's challenges at many levels because I have lived them in many ways. Yes, as with every human I have skeletons in my closets and scuff marks. It has been those life experiences that have allowed me the opportunity to grow and have the depth of compassion I share so freely with others."

She ran for District 7 City Council against Romy Cachola this year, but lost. She remains on the neighborhood board.

Her Kau Kau Wagon will do a massive feeding of the homeless this Saturday. What they need are 35-40 cooked hams, yams for at least 600 people, 45 pans of cooked potatoes with gravy, 500 servings of rice, 600 rolls and 75 pies. Somehow, she figures, it will appear.

And the organization needs money. She says you can go to any Bank of Hawaii and give to the Kau Kau Wagon donation account.

One last, emphatic comment from Aunty Lynn for this Christmas:

"God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces!"