FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Casey Gorton was convinced the letter was a mistake.
As a 23-year-old single mother and full-time student, the Fort Collins woman thought the military letter that called her into service would never come.
But it did, and Gorton, a young mother with a 1-year-old daughter, was shipped to Iraq to serve her country.
On Feb. 11, the Fort Collins mom and her daughter were reunited for the first time in 10 months.
It wasn’t Gorton’s girlhood dream to join the military. In fact, the decision shocked her family. Sandwiched between two well-built brothers who both played football and wrestled in high school, Gorton was what her mom described as “the rose between two thorns.”
“She’s got two heathen brothers,” said Patty Thompson, Gorton’s mom. “I never expected it to be the girl.”
But at 19, Gorton, who was already a member of the ROTC at the University of Wyoming, where she studies mathematics and actuarial science, enlisted in the National Guard with an unwavering desire to serve her country.
“At the time, I was ready to be packed up and go right then,” Gorton said.
During basic and advanced training, Gorton shone with combat expertise. She not only held the highest rank for gunmanship, “expert,” which is above marksman and sharpshooter, but she also won first place out of her platoon in a hand-to-hand combat competition. Eventually, Gorton specialized in becoming an Army combat medic responsible for initiating and providing medical treatment in war combat zones.
The letter found Gorton torn between being a mother and reporting for duty. She ultimately chose to uphold her military responsibility. She thought maybe 1-year-old Arianna, who had just begun to master a handful of words, wouldn’t remember her mommy’s trip to Iraq clad in military camouflage and dog tags.
“I signed up, and it was my duty,” Gorton said. “I also thought maybe I was taking the place of a single mother with four kids. I was trying to do something good.”
“It was the noblest thing she could have done,” said Philip Hicks, Arianna’s father, who assumed the role of Mr. Mom for the next 10 months.
Hicks said it was a daily struggle with uncertainty knowing that Gorton, in the heart of war, might never make it home.
Stationed in Talil, Iraq, Gorton saw amputations, shrapnel wounds, suicide, death and sickness. Still, nothing affected her as much as the persistent ache she felt being away from her daughter.
“I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be without her,” Gorton said. “I have never before been physically ill because of my emotions.”
Gorton and Arianna attempted to narrow the 7,000-mile gap between Fort Collins and Iraq with the supportive help of Hicks, Thompson and the rest of the family.
Arianna could watch a DVD of Gorton singing and talking to her or see the “Mommy Wall,” a wall full of pictures of Gorton at Arianna’s eye-level. Gorton hung Arianna’s artwork, which Hicks would mail, near her bed. The two used online video conferencing as often as possible.
Still, Arianna wasn’t held or kissed by her mom for nearly 10 months.
On Feb. 11, Gorton said she walked into Denver International Airport prepared to hold a daughter who might not recognize her.
“I was ready for her to not even know who I was.”
But Arianna, who can now run and speak in full sentences, ran right up to Gorton and welcomed her mom home.
The two have plenty of catching up do, and Gorton recognizes she missed a key chunk of her daughter’s life.
“She looks the same, but there are small differences that I notice,” Gorton said. “And sometimes she signs songs that I don’t even know the words to because I wasn’t there.”
Gorton plans to resume her full-time school work this summer.
Until then, she plans to spend as much time as possible with Arianna.
