GI going to Iraq bids goodbye to mom on Mother's Day

Brunilda Torres held it together for as long as she could on this most painful of Mother's Days, as she watched her only son go off to war in Iraq at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma.

There had been only an occasional trickle of tears as she and her family accompanied Army Spc. Alberto Pabon from Bay Shore to the airport with a booming motorcycle escort of Patriot Guard Riders and Blue Star Mothers.

She endured check-in and some media interviews, but as her son walked through a corridor of flags held by Veterans of Foreign Wars and doubled back to thank each veteran, she sobbed at the entrance to security, her hand covering her mouth.

"It hurts, especially on Mother's Day," Torres, 52, said earlier. "He's my only child. We're very close. . . . It's scary."

Pabon, 22, tempered his obvious enthusiasm for the mission with concern for his mother, stepfather Nick Gilas and Pabon's fiancee, Cid Pabon.

"I always liked the Army," since he was 14, Pabon said. Since enlisting, he said he's reveled in the educational and other opportunities the Army has given him.

He has been in military intelligence, but this will be his first deployment overseas, after a stop at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.

But reporting for duty on Mother's Day - "That's hard," he said.

And he knew it would be. He got his notice 24 days ago, but told his mother about it only last week.

"He didn't know how to face me," Torres said. "I was angry, very angry."

Not at her son, of course - "I'm very proud of him. He's an awesome boy. He's a great boy." She was just angry at life, she said, at the hand it had dealt her, at being forced to worry about whether she would see her son alive again.

"I just tell her it's going to be one year," Pabon said. "Security is better in Iraq."

He spent as much time with his mother as he could in the past few weeks. With help from her co-workers at Hawkeye, a Hauppauge construction company, mother and son fulfilled a longtime dream and saw the Yankees on Wednesday. He got her a Blu-ray player for Mother's Day.

Despite his eagerness to serve in the Army, the difficulty in leaving his mother was simple, Pabon said: "I love her, and I'll miss her."

"And you better promise you'll come back home," she said, as he pulled her tight.

After Pabon's plane left, Torres said the support from the Blue Star Mothers - women with children in the military - and the Patriot Guard Riders meant a lot, as did the rousing farewell from veterans. She cradled the flowers that airport public affairs director Catherine Green had given her.

"I just pray he comes back," she said.