It's a belated Christmas story that started out as a Modesto mother's nightmare, as gift-wrapped by her son. "He said he was quitting Modesto Junior College to join the Marines," Tina Barter said, recalling that day in their Modesto home almost four years ago.Mom tried to reason with her son Jason. "I told him he didn't need to go," she said. "Somebody else's child could serve."
Jason Barter was not swayed by his mother's tears or reasoning. He signed on the dotted line and he soon would be on his way to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego and a war in the desert.
His mother went to bed — and stayed there.
When asked recently what dark thoughts overpowered her then, Tina Barter's face clouds up. She is mute. She refuses even to consider articulating feelings. She still is afraid to give any life to a dark fate for her son, who is now on his second tour of duty. Tanya Breitenbach only will offer that her sister feared the worst. Tina Barter barely nods her agreement.
But how did she finally get out of bed? "A good friend came over," recalled Barter. "She got in bed with me and said she was staying or we were getting up together."
And so she would start to become a full-blooded American military mom.
Today, there is a Marine portrait of Jason Barter in the family's living room. A Marine Corps scrapbook overflows with pictures and mementos. Barter and her husband, Jay, were in San Diego when their son graduated from basic training and earned the title U.S. Marine in 2003. As a reward for finishing boot camp, they took Jason Barter to Hawaii before he was deployed.
During the ongoing war in Iraq, these loving parents waited on pins and needles as their son manned a machine gun on a small armored vehicle. "This is the damage the vehicle took when it got hit," she said, pointing to a photograph of the caved-in front bumper and hood. "They towed it in and they fixed it themselves and went back out."
In another snapshot, the metal hood and fender have been replaced with plywood.
Eventually, Tina Barter gave up her vigil watching CNN and Internet news. She started coming out of her shell. She got a job. Recently, she started attending meetings of Blue Star Mothers and Families.
Of course, it was reluctantly at first. "Jennifer (Tyson) invited me, but I couldn't," Barter said. "I wrote Jason about it and he ordered me to go. He said 'That's the mother of a fallen Marine (Michael D. Anderson Jr.). You have to go.'"
She learned to cope. She withstood his first tour of duty in Iraq from March through September of 2004. She even got through a battle in al-Anbar province where 12 Marines died. Her son was there, too.
The past year offered a new challenge for the Barters. Even after his first tour, Barter made it home for Christmas. With him and daughter Danielle, the family always had been complete for the holidays. "Either Jason came home or we went to him (in San Diego)," explained his mother.
But this Christmas, part of their hearts and home was missing. Barter is on his second deployment to Iraq. He shares a barrack with six other enlisted men in Ramadi.
About 80 Sunni police recruits were killed by a bomb a few weeks ago. Days later, a mortar shell dropped not far from Barter's office. It's an environment of worry and concern for any parent.
Facing Christmas without her son, Tina Barter decided to do something about it. She enlisted her family, her husband's corporation, a few hotels and many friends. She mailed the Barter Christmas to her son, piece by piece. Everything was sent except the family. She wrote her son not to open any boxes before Christmas.
The one exception was the first box, which contained two Christmas trees, decorations and some inflatable holiday decorations.
Barter opened that one to the dismay of some Marine Scrooges. "What the hell is that, Corporal Barter?" asked a skeptical sergeant. "It's only the day after Thanksgiving!" That, Corporal Barter replied, is the Barter way. "That's the way we always do it at home."
When Christmas came, Barter opened more than a half-dozen containers, each containing dozens more wrapped presents. He shared his Santa windfall with his Marine comrades. There were cookies, liqueur-filled chocolates, electronic and board games, balloons, a soccer ball, books and much, much more. There was enough to make many Marines merry and several Marines cry.
Barter said to his mother: "It's not the best Christmas I've ever had. But considering where I am and who I'm with, it's the best Christmas I could have hoped for." He added to a reporter: "It's been the best part of this deployment."
His mother admitted being a changed woman since that day four years ago when her son announced he was joining the Marines. Other people's children matter more than she ever dreamed. "You cry for everyone," she said. "It's almost as if they are all your own. Whenever I get something for Jason now, I always buy seven."
Noteworthy. A story in which the Marine had neither been seriously wounded or killed. To date, almost all other stories of this kind had an element like that.