And in a way, the Tristate women also will honor their special friendship, spawned in a desert more than 6,000 miles away. She's there if I need a hug. She's there if I need to talk. This Sunday, the mothers and their families will join survivors of more than 300 military personnel killed during the war at a ceremony at Arlington. It is sponsored by No Greater Love, a Washington-based nonprofit created in 1971 to honor fallen members of the military as well as other casualties of disasters or acts of violence.
Tears flow often during the three-day trips to Washington.
And the two women say they sometimes struggle to squelch the feelings of anger and resentment that surface. But they rely on their bond to get through those times, offering one another a hug, a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold. The ceremony at Arlington Cemetery provides a stopover for the women's annual gravesite visits with their sons. The trip also includes dinner at the Kuwaiti Embassy, where all the surviving family members dine with that country's ambassador and other foreign dignitaries. Each year those dignitaries reiterate their gratitude for American intervention after the Iraqi siege of Kuwait, and express their sorrow over the losses the conflict caused.