Talk about boo-boos, singing nursery rhymes were mixed in with “I love you” as Staff Sgt. Angie Younger-Embree spoke with her immediate and extended family during a video conference at Texas A&M University-Commerce last Friday.
Along with being able to see her family, Younger-Embree was excited by her recent promotion to staff sargeant during the beginning of the hour-long video conference.
Younger-Embree joined the Army in 2002 and was deployed to Iraq in September for a 15-month tour.
She works for Freedom Calls Center at Camp Taji helping connect calls and video conferences for soldiers and their families.
According to the Freedom Calls Foundation Web site, the program is a public charity supported by donations with no funding from the military. More than 2,000 video conferences and over 1.5 million minutes of telephone calls are serviced, free of charge, to military families every month from five bases.
A&M-Commerce is the only facility equipped to handle the video conferencing in the area. Younger-Embree contacted Mike Smith, video supervisor for Instructional Technology and Distance Education, in November to see if the University could handle the conferences, and so far, is the only soldier to be connected to their family using this technology.
“It’s an opportunity for us to do good for the community. She’s the first and we want to get the word out that this service is available so we can connect as many families we can,” Smith said.
Younger-Embree helped connect more than 1,100 calls on Christmas Day for soldiers to wish family members a merry Christmas as opposed to the 500 on an average day. She has also helped a soldier witness the birth of his child and helped a couple get married via video conferencing.
“Probably the hardest thing was leaving her husband and two kids,” Patsy Embree, Younger-Embree’s mother-in-law, said.
Younger-Embree has two children, son Skyler, 4, and a 23-month-old daughter, Natsu, whose name means summer in Japanese. Both children were born in Japan.
“The baby is a year-and-a-half. She’ll be three when momma comes home; that’s a long time. That’s a lot of firsts that you miss,” Patsy said.
The family said that the Army is trying to help soldiers with children feel more connected, and one way is by making individualized pillow cases with pictures and handprints of the children on the parent’s pillow and vice versa. This way, the child gets to go to sleep with their parent.
Luckily, Younger-Embree is able to talk frequently with her family because of her position.
“[Pete] talks to her pretty much every day because she’s in the Freedom Center. We are thankful God placed her where he did,” Patsy said.
After enlisting in the Army, Younger-Embree was faced with battling both cervical and thyroid cancer.
“She’s had her problems and had her ups and downs, but she’s a fighter,” said Sharron Younger, Younger-Embree’s mother, said.
“It’s dangerous, she’s in a war zone. She’s only 20 kilometers north of Baghdad,” said Cynthia York, Younger-Embree’s aunt, said.