M. Kate West
Chester Editor
12/03/08

“There are times when each of us moms, as parents of a child serving in the military, kind of go out of our minds with the need to talk with someone who is walking in our same shoes,” said Christine Boyd. “Military life is vastly different from the life we live day to day and it is important that we be able to respond and support our children as they face new challenges.”

She said it was equally as important that moms and family members receive the support they need as their sons, daughters and other family members deploy to war zones.

“Becoming involved with Blue Star moms was just a matter of fate,” she said. “I had stopped by my son’s Marine recruiter’s office to drop off a flyer and, as I walked past the Army recruiter’s office, SSG (Staff Sergeant) Moak asked me if I knew about the program.”

She told him she knew “what it meant to be a Blue Star Mother” and he asked her if she would be interested in starting a chapter.

“I told him I was pretty busy right now and that I had a lot of things going on,” she said. “What I knew I really had to do before responding was to talk to my husband about my becoming involved.

“Although I didn’t commit at that time, by the time I reached home I knew that I couldn’t not be involved in a program that supports the armed forces. I knew I wanted to be involved; I just didn’t want to be divorced,” she said with a laugh.

After offering her husband a history of the organization she asked if he would mind her being involved.

My husband started laughing too and said, “Yes, OK, as if I have a choice.”

Boyd said the chapter’s adopted motto is “Supporting our Children, Supporting our Veterans, Supporting each Other.”

Among the roles the members hope to fill is to advocate for families in need of deployed military personnel. Advocacy could be in the form of connecting businesses with a soldier’s family in need, such as helping to have a roof or oven replaced. Other assistance might include helping a family with firewood, snow removal or other family needs.

“Since 9/11 and the introduction of anthrax, you just can’t mail things to the troops as easily as before,’” she said. “As a result, they don’t receive as many boxes as they did before and there is a strong need to fill that void.”

She said the chapter would eventually become involved in sending care packages, adopting individual soldiers and units stationed overseas and even forming a welcoming committee for returning soldiers.

She said the chapter would more then likely hold special drives for specific items in the tri-county communities.

Explaining about chapter basics she said, “Moms are the actual membership of our organization but dads, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters and so on are very welcome as valued associates of our organization.”

Blue Star Mothers is a national organization and the Soaring Eagle Blue Star Moms is a local chapter she founded to serve Lassen, Plumas and Modoc counties.

Boyd said moms having questions shouldn’t hesitate to either call SSG Moak or write, via e-mail, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Boyd fully realizes the challenges mountain weather can bring when trying to encourage people to attend a meeting. Blue Star meetings are also held in other nearby locations outside the tri-county area.

She said, “If Plumas County wanted to branch off and start their own chapter that would be absolutely fine. It would be terrific if we could all get started at the same time.”

For interested moms in Eastern Plumas County a closer meeting location might be the Sparks chapter.

Boyd shared this information with the Chester Progressive office as her final stop of the day. On her information sharing tour she had also visited Chilcoot, Portola, Quincy and Greenville earlier in the day.

The next Soaring Eagle Blue Star Moms meeting is Dec. 16, from 6–8 p.m., at the Veteran’s Memorial Building, across the street from Lassen Union High School, in Susanville.

She also said to learn more about the national organization, bluestarmothers.org would provide a history that began in 1942.

For more information about the Susanville chapter, contact U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Lyman Moak at 257-5085.