Yuma son with 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan, fighting terrorism

Earline Gordon worries about her son.

The 1999 graduate of Kofa High School is on the ground in Afghanistan, still fighting the war on terrorism one year after it began.

“It's scary,” Gordon said.

Her son, Army Spc. LeKendrick T. Stallworth, went to Afghanistan as a demolitions expert last July with the 82nd Airborne. His platoon conducts combat engineer operations.

Gordon says all she really knows about her son does is that he blows up buildings and caves. He can't tell her exactly what's going on, or where he's at, other than in Afghanistan.

She pulls out a packet of photographs that arrived Tuesday. Stallworth and his buddies are jammed into tents. The scenery outside is brown, barren and battered.

That's about it.

“Mainly, you think, “Oh, something's gonna happen to my baby boy,” Gordon said. “But he told me, ‘Mom, this is what I signed up for.' I was proud of him when he told me that. He said, ‘Mom, I have to go do my part.'”

When he left, her “baby” did the things a soldier has to do. He made up a will, gave his mother his legal power of attorney and gave careful instruction to his mom concerning his brother, Christopher Gordon, and his 12-year-old sister, Jehane Gordon.

They were not to watch the news or view any war movies.

Because the Gordons don't own a television, his little sister Jehane had never seen the awful pictures of the planes slamming into the World Trade Center.

That is, until last week. She saw the terrible event for the first time during a school program.

“When she saw it, she broke down and cried,” Gordon said. Now Jehane is upset about what people might do to her brother.

“This is her first time at getting a glimpse of death,” Gordon said.

And that, she continued, is the very reason Stallworth didn't want his sister to watch television.

“Because sometimes even adults cannot handle what someone they care about is having to endure,” Gordon explained. “And what countries like Afghanistan do to military people, especially Americans, well, I don't want to see that. I really don't.”

Up until recently, Gordon thought her son would be coming home in January. At least, that was the plan when he went over there. But he managed an infrequent phone call last weekend, telling her his tour had been extended to May. She's disappointed but resolute.

“That's just a part of being in the military,” she said.

Ironically, the biggest difficulty she's had since her son has been gone has been making payment arrangements with stores that her son bought furniture from while he was in Georgia. Even though Stallworth gave her his power of attorney just so she could take his money and pay his bills, the store won't deal with her.

“They say, ‘I don't want to talk to you. He has to call to authorize it,'” she said. She explains that her son is in Afghanistan and can't exactly pick up the phone and call a store, but they insist, she said.

Still, she's not mad, and she certainly isn't going to worry about it.

Especially now that it's Sept. 11 and memories of that day that launched the war on terrorism are everywhere.

“I just can't let it get to me,” she said. “When I write my son, I tell everybody (in his platoon) thank you and I appreciate them being over there.”

Gordon, a single mom, shyly brings out a small plaque that her son made for her after completing his parachute training. It carries his military designations and his airborne wings and it's dedicated to her.

“People say I shouldn't spend so much money on care packages,” Gordon says, brushing her hand gently across Stallworth's wings.

“I say, my son is worth it.”