Home from Afghanistan for a birthday party Home from Afghanistan for a birthday party (July 08, 2005)

Army corporal surprises mom for 50th birthday party

Army Corporal Sarah Leslie thought she'd surprise her mother Corinne on her 50th birthday last Monday, and the shock waves are still reverberating through the family's Greenwood Road home.

Corinne's 23-year-old daughter is stationed in Bagram, 40 miles from Kabul, and called her mother about 8 p.m. Thursday, June 30, to say she was on a trip to Pakistan. While they were talking, Sarah walked into the family room to give a birthday hug to her mother, a Pleasanton Scout leader who still had her cell phone to her ear.

"I think she totally freaked out to see me," Sarah said. "It took a while for her to calm down."

Sarah Leslie graduated from Amador Valley High School in June 2001 and signed up for five years in the Army, a tour that offered a year of special engineering training and a government-paid scholarship to the college of her choice when she completed her service time. It seemed like a good way to gain college credits and training with major benefits at the end.

Of course, 9/11 changed that. Sarah was in a grenade qualification exercise at Ft. Jackson, N.C., when word came of the terrorists' attack on the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and the downed plane in Pennsylvania. The Army recruits knew their duties would change and that military combat was likely.

"It was a total shock for everyone," Sarah said. "It was like a giant wave had hit us emotionally. We knew we wouldn't be going home anytime soon."

The emotions also hit scores of Pleasanton families, like Sarah's, who wondered what was next for their loved ones. For Sarah's family in Pleasanton, including her father Dave, a Safeway corporate executive and younger sister Jennifer, now 17 and a senior at Amador, word came quickly that Sarah would be shipping out to Afghanistan after allied forces had reasonably secured Kabul. A technical engineering specialist, Sarah was assigned as the personal driver for Brig. Gen. Jack Sterling, who is leading the task force charged with calming Afghanistan.

"I told him my mother was celebrating her 50th birthday on July 4 and I had no trouble getting 19 days off to come home," Sarah said. "It took three days to get here and I have to go back July 16, but it turned out to be a wonderful surprise."

Sarah said she expects to stay in Afghanistan seven more months, and then transfer to Germany before leaving the Army next July. From there, she hopes to enroll in a California college to study social anthropology.

"That's the study of human societies and what makes them tick," she explained. "It deals with historical, emotional, current trends and social concerns," she added.

It seems that's what she's been dealing with since 9/11. -By Jeb Bing

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