Vet helps kids await ‘When Dad Comes Home’
LYNN Glenda Baca has plenty of help caring for her three children during her husbands absence, but she smiled and thanked Jeffrey Hollett Friday when the Army veteran handed her a book that could have been written about Bacas life.
When My Dad Comes Home was written for children of United States military members away from their homes and families. Air Force Master Sgt. Christopher Baca and his wife have spent one week together in the last three months. Their sons, Benjamin, 9, and Tucker, 6, and daughter, Sophia, 7, attend Lincoln-Thomson School.
They have their moments when they really miss him, especially my daughter, Glenda Baca said.
Hollett understands the way Sophia Baca feels: He served for 27 years in the Army all over the world before retiring in 2012. When he received a copy of the book written by Guadalupe Espinoza Vela and illustrated by Mauricio Luengas, he gave a copy to his niece, Madeline Hollett.
Hollett, a Highlands resident and administrative clerk in the citys Veterans Department, took time when he wasnt working to gift-wrap copies of When My Dad Comes Home and drop them off at area schools.
He enlisted his roommates and friends in the project as he made the rounds of schools, including Lincoln-Thomson. The copies he dropped off Friday to Glenda Baca and her children included these words of encouragement to Benjamin Baca: Its really important you help your mom. Your dad will be very proud, Hollett told the boy.
Glenda and Christopher Baca have been married since 2001 and he has been an Air Force reservist for 20 years. He has been on active duty since October, serving as a flight engineer aboard one of the Air Forces giant transport planes.
Glenda Baca is a career flight attendant who is earning a liberal arts degree at North Shore Community College. She said her children are used to their parents not always being at home at the same time and said her husbands deployment has been made easier with help from relatives, friends and Lincoln-Thomson parents, teachers and administrators.
The school knows my children well. Im really lucky to have these amazing people around, she said.
She helped her children unwrap books presented to them by Hollett on Friday and immediately found one of her familys rituals mirrored in the story.
We always say grace together; its so important, she said.
Hollett termed the loneliness and distress families endure the other side of the sacrifice made by American military personnel.
They didnt volunteer for this; theres not a whole lot of training for this, but they realize their loved one is off to war thats scary, he said.
Baca hopes her husband is home for the holidays, but she knows the big planes he helps fly can break down, stranding him for days, halfway around the world.
Its very difficult, she said.
Tags: Veterans News
