Like most moms after a long day, Col. Julianne LeFevre likes to
say goodnight to her son. But for several months, as she was heading off to
sleep on a military base in northern Iraq, her son, Eli Kerr, was in the middle
of his school day at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington.
Normally, Julianne works as a civilian in human resources for the
Department of the Navy. But last year, the Army reservist deployed on Mother’s
Day to Erbil Air Force Base in Iraq, where she worked to supply forces in Syria
with food, water, fuel and ammunition as they fought the Islamic State group.
After she deployed, Eli, a seventh grader, was given permission
to call his mom during the school day. His teacher Nancy Meehan came up with
the idea to give the mother and son a little more privacy by asking the school
nurse or counselor, whomever could leave their office for 10 minutes, to let
Eli make the call there.
Julianne was busy and without access to her personal phone during
the day, but each evening she was able to talk to Eli. “It was a great way to
end my day,” said Julianne. “To hear his voice and do a daily check-in — how
he’s doing in school, his feelings with me being gone, especially with COVID.
He was going through so many transitions between when (the school) went online
to spending 100 percent of his time with his dad — it was a lot.”
Eli also was grateful for the daily chat. “Something everyone
told me was that I’m very lucky because people (years ago) wouldn’t be able to
call their parents or talk to them, they could only do letters,” he said. “That
kind of made me feel very lucky and happy that I was able to talk to my mom
every day.”
To thank the school, Julianne sent them a challenge coin, a
military token of appreciation, and a flag that had flown over the camp where
she was stationed. The school plans to hang the flag in the hallway.
Many cathedral school families have connections to the military
and in November, St. Thomas More was designated a Purple Star School by the
Virginia Department of Education for its commitment to supporting military
families.
“There’s quite a lot of military families, so I’m not the first
one to deploy, but Eli and I certainly felt special,” said Julianne. “It made
the deployment so much better because we just stayed connected.”
