By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
That was a plea to her family from Nicole "Nikki" Nichols, 24, a 1997 Dowagiac Union High School graduate stationed in Iraq with Army communications with the 63rd Signal Battalion out of Fort Gordon, Ga.
She must trust that Nikki is well-trained and God is watching out for her.
Tasha said when they spoke March 18, "She just wanted to call and say she loved us. I said, 'Nikki, it's going to happen soon.' She said, 'I know. They told us this morning.' I said, 'Are you scared?' She goes, 'Yeah.' She couldn't tell me where she was."
Roberta said, "She can still only tell me she's south of Baghdad, but she's safe. She's in communications and I knew all along she was moving with rank. She's had to have special clearance to do her job. She's nervous, but I was getting choked up on the phone. She said, 'Don't worry, Mom. Are you OK?' It was getting scary because that is when the Iraqi soldiers put on civilian clothes and waved white flags. She kept wanting to know what the news was back here. I said, 'They're acting like they're surrendering, Nikki, and they're not. You can't trust women or children at this point, and I hated to say that to her, but we were losing Marines and their civilians were being used."
Roberta said her daughter talked "very matter-of-fact. No emotions. She wasn't talking personally, like she was before the war. You could tell she was focused on what she had to do. I told Tasha, 'She sounded like a soldier this time.' That put it into perspective for us. It bothered me, but it gave me comfort, too. She kept saying, 'We're doing our jobs, Mom.' I said, 'You guys are doing a tremendous job.' The Marines were 50 miles from Baghdad then."
Nikki, who marked her first anniversary in the military Jan. 14, had gone from boot camp to war.
In her last call before the war, "She said she was going to a place that's not very nice and 'I may earn a combat patch.' And she said she was heading north, behind the mechanized infantry" by a day and a half.
Roberta remembers the stirring sight of 1,000 soldiers graduating at Fort Jackson who all joined after Sept. 11, 2001. "It was unbelievable to see 1,000 soldiers along a tree line in their dress greens, not moving a muscle, and then start marching. She has trained just like a man."