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When she heard the words that every soldier's mother prays to hear, Maryanne Sullivan wasn't quite finished dressing.
"Hi, Mom!" chirped the young man standing in the bedroom doorway of her Lilburn home. Spc. Greg Sullivan, A Company, 121st Infantry Division, 48th Brigade, Georgia National Guard, was back from Iraq.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Greg said, a bit embarrassed at having surprised her. He was an hour early, having driven the 250-or-so miles from Fort Stewart in a legally questionable time.
Sorry was one of the few emotions Maryanne Sullivan was not feeling.
Her son was home.
Even an hour or more after their reunion Thursday, it was hard for her to complete a sentence without interrupting herself to give Greg, 22, a misty-eyed embrace.
"It's going to take me a few weeks to realize he's really here, and relax," she said. "There were times when I was almost sick from the stress; sometimes at work, I'd be watching the news, and I'd have to go to the women's room to cry.
"This has been the hardest year of my life," she said.
Soon after Greg's arrival, though, Maryanne Sullivan regrouped and did what comes naturally to most moms. She fed her son.
Her freezer was filled with dozens of the ice cream sandwiches she'd made for him. A platter of her trademark chocolate chip cookies was at the ready.
Greg had been on the go since 3 a.m., packing his gear, driving to Lawrenceville for a brief check-in at the company headquarters at the National Guard Armory, and then racing home. He was still getting adjusted.
"Everything is so green," he marveled at the neighborhood he'd grown up in. "It smells better here; nothing's burning. But I keep thinking I might have to go back."
The things he wanted most, aside from reunion with his loved ones, were the simple comforts of home: "sleeping in my own bed, taking a shower where the hot water doesn't run out, hanging out at the pool."
Greg Sullivan is the youngest of Maryanne Sullivan's three children. After her divorce, she raised them mostly on her own.
Greg had been inclined toward the military since he was a boy, building backyard forts out of wooden pallets. Both of his grandfathers served in World War II.
He enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was a junior at Brookwood High School. By the time he graduated, he had completed most of his basic training.
He had saved money for college from odd jobs like cutting lawns. Near the end of his first term at Gwinnett Tech, his unit was mobilized.
That precipitated a major relationship decision for Greg and his girlfriend, Brooke Harrison, of Snellville. They became engaged, though they deferred making wedding plans till Greg returned.
"It was so hard to say goodbye," Brooke said of their separation last year.
It was hard on just about everyone.
When Greg was deployed to Iraq, a large portion of his extended family deployed themselves to Maryanne Sullivan's neighborhood.
Her mother, Theresa Stec, her two sisters, Tricia Maynard and Susan Sawyer, and their families all moved from North Smithfield, R.I., to Sullivan's subdivision in Lilburn.
"It was a refreshing change," Maynard said, understating the way the family rallied around her sister, who'd essentially been left alone and deeply worried by Greg's assignment to the war zone.
Maryanne Sullivan's mother moved in with her. The two sisters found homes after searching for only a week or two. "It was kind of meant to be," Maynard said.
Adding to the family fortifications, Maryanne Sullivan's oldest son Brad also moved back home.
And every Tuesday night, Greg's fiancee, Brooke, came to Maryanne Sullivan's house for support, dinner and to watch "American Idol" together.
While he was in Iraq, Greg Sullivan didn't tell the folks back home much about what he was experiencing. It was only after he came back to Georgia last week that he talked to his mother about things like wrecking his armored personnel carrier while coming to the scene where two comrades had been killed in an explosion, or the sporadic, sleep-depriving mortar fire, or the routinely dangerous routine patrols.
Brooke also made the drive to Fort Stewart, even though long car trips are difficult for her. "I was so excited, I, like, attacked him," she said.
Greg Sullivan said his first priority is to relax with his fiancee, his mother and brother, and with the abundance of uncles, aunts and cousins his neighborhood is now stocked with.
Next, he plans to re-start college.
He'll also be looking for a part-time job. His only requirement is that it be something nearby.
Now that he's back, he does not want to stray too far from home.
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
