Glendale Marine Mom Published in New York Times

Glendale resident Diane Guerra saw her byline on the New York Times' website yesterday where she published a moving, introspective essay about her son's return from his first tour in Iraq in 2003.

Her story isn't so much about her son, Lance Cpl. Eric Shelvy of Glendale, who served two difficult tours in Iraq. Rather she focuses on a woman she'd never met. The two mothers have a lot in common: They both have sons, named Eric and Erik, who joined the Marines and fought in the war in Iraq.

But only Guerra's Eric came home on the day Guerra describes. Cpl. Erik Silva was shot and killed by an insurgent just feet away from Guerra's son, who returned fire and killed the insurgent. It was Shelvy's 20th birthday.

"I knew her story could have been my story," Guerra wrote. "In my mind I had seen those same Marines a thousand times standing at my front door in St. Louis, erect in their formal uniforms."

Guerra describes the confusing-but-simultaneous mixture of grief, joy, relief and fear she felt meeting Silva's mother moments before reuniting with her son after his first tour.

"I did not know how I felt," she wrote.

This isn't Shelvy's first time to see his story in print. In 2004, his picture was on the cover of Time Magazine illustrating a story about the dangerous fight for Fallujah. In 2007, he and three other St. Louisans described their time fighting in Iraq for St. Louis Magazine.

Guerra's essay comes from a memoir she is writing and is featured on the Times' At War blog about military conflicts in the post 9/11-era.