Army News Service

lWith her husband and five children in the military, Terri Lamb said she doesn’t mind when friends mention the movie “Saving Private Ryan” or compare her family to the Sullivan brothers. “To me, it’s a real honor to compare them to a family that sacrificed so much,” Terri said of the five Sullivan brothers who all perished aboard the USS Juneau when a torpedo sank the ship during World War II. “I look at it as if they are true patriots.”

Terri admitted that when her husband Sgt. Maj. Mike Lamb was deployed to Bosnia last year and she heard that her son Spc. Jason Lamb was about to deploy to Afghanistan, she was initially concerned. “That made me just a little bit nervous,” Terri said.

Now her son Spc. Richard Lamb is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in the spring with a 25th Infantry Division unit out of Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii. Her oldest son Spc. Scott Lamb is now at Fort Polk, La., but he is scheduled to deploy with the 25th Inf. Div. to Afghanistan at the end of the summer.

Her son-in-law, Spc. Jerry Diaz, is already in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y. And her daughter, Airman Renee Lamb, could possibly deploy to Afghanistan in April, Terri said. Spc. Timothy Lamb with the Indiana National Guard is the only son not yet scheduled to deploy.

But Terri is taking the deployment news in relative stride these days. “I’m very proud of them,” Terri said. “It’s amazing that they’ve all gone this route. They’re doing it for very unselfish reasons.” One of the amazing aspects, Terri said, is that neither she nor her husband encouraged their children to join the military.

“I was very much reluctant to encourage them to join the Army,” said Sgt. Maj. Mike Lamb who serves with the Army Training and Doctrine Command headquarters at Fort Monroe, Va. He's the top enlisted Soldier in the office of the TRADOC Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Training. “Neither my wife nor I pushed them in any direction. It was their decision,” he said. “I didn’t want them to feel any pressure.”

“I encouraged them to go to college,” said Terri, who works as an academic adviser for St. Leo University. Despite that, four of her children enlisted in 2001, even before Sept. 11, within a period of less than six months. And both parents said they are extremely proud of the decisions their sons and daughter made.

During holiday visits, Terri said it's easy to gather the family in one room. "We just yell `specialist' and everybody comes running," she said.

In Terri’s job as a college counselor, she works at the post Education Center at Fort Eustis, Va., where she recommends course direction for Soldiers. She said a number of her clients recently returned injured from Iraq or Afghanistan, and she feels a special tie to all of them. “Any Soldier who comes to my door is part of my family too,” Terri said.

via Sgt. Hook