Family, friends await hero's return

Susie Crowder beams as she sits in a rocking chair on the porch outside her west Porterville home and talks about her son, tightly clutching three photographs of him and a commemorative throw made in his honor.

Red, white and blue decorations of all shapes and sizes — flags, banners, ribbons and wreaths among them — make her home and yard pop with a patriotism and a proudness that cannot be denied.

Crowder is waiting for her hero — indeed an American hero — to return home.

Her son, Sgt. John Crowder, 42, is currently on tour in Afghanistan with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. This is his fourth tour. He’s already done three in Iraq.

Attached to a pine tree in Susie’s yard is a ribbon-shaped sign that her husband, Charles, cut out of wood. The words “Come home safe, John” are painted on the sign, which has a light above it so it can always be seen.

“I want everybody to see that, day and night,” Susie said.

“I do this for therapy,” she said of the decorations. “It makes me feel good, and it makes [John] proud, of course.”

Susie learned a few months ago that John, who has already given 19 years of military service, would be serving for a year in Afghanistan. John was on leave and shared the news with his mother while the two were sitting on a couch inside her home on West Westfield Avenue.

“I had always heard stories that it was rough over there,” Susie said. “I just had a bad feeling about it. I don’t know why, but I did.”

But feelings of hope and optimism quickly squash the fears.

“I never really worried about him very much,” she said. “I always felt he had an angel looking over him.”

Susie has learned how to cope with fear for decades.

John’s twin brother, Vance Crowder, was a sergeant with the Marines. Susie’s son-in-law, Kevin Convoy, is currently a sergeant major with the Marines. In the early 1990s, John, Vance and Kevin were all involved in the Gulf War at the same time.

“That was really hard when they were all over there,” Susie said.

To alleviate the challenge, Susie started a support group.

“That was really helpful for me,” she said. “I started getting a lot of calls from mothers and wives who were going through the same thing I was.”

Susie also met with American Legion veterans, who were able to sympathize with her stories and challenges.

“It helped us, and it helped them,” she said. “The American Legion was a big help for us during that time.”

When John returned home from his first tour in Iraq, hundreds of people — including students from Olive Street and Ducor Union elementary schools — were waiting in the Bakersfield airport to give him a hero’s welcome. John tutored at Olive Street when he was a student at Porterville High School.

About three weeks later, another large group — which included many of the same people who went to Bakersfield — traveled to the Visalia airport to welcome home Vance.

“I’ve always been very proud of my sons and my son-in-law,” Susie said.

Today, Vance is correctional officer in Nevada. He was a Marine for 14 years.

As for John, the Marine who twice received Drill Sergeant of the Year honors among his unit plans to retire after his tour in Afghanistan.

Until then, Susie — and many more friends and family members, including John’s wife, Elva, and their two children, Lisa Marie, 19, and John Jr., 14 — will wait for him to return home once more.

When he does, a hero will be home.