Yellow ribbons

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. -- There isn't a tree, porch post or flower pot outside the Peterson's house that doesn't have a giant yellow ribbon tied around it.

Samantha Peterson put them up April 3, the day her husband was deployed to Iraq.

There is only one person who can take them down: Army 1st Lt. Donavan Peterson.

But Samantha Peterson hopes her husband will get to see the ribbon display at their central Missouri home in Rolla before April 2004, when he's scheduled to return. She has submitted a photograph of her handiwork for possible inclusion in a book being compiled for deployed soldiers.

"I would love it if he were looking through the book and came across our house," Peterson said. "It would be a really nice surprise for him."

Katherine Franz, photographic branch chief at Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., came up with the idea for the book while walking around the fort after the Iraq war began in March.

"I was noticing all the yellow ribbons, and I said to myself, 'You know, the soldiers need to see this,'" Franz said.

It became even more pressing after she received an e-mail from her 22-year-old nephew, an Army military policeman serving in Iraq.

"He said, 'I'm hot and I'm tired and being shot at makes the day go by faster,'" Franz said. "Your heart just goes out."

Franz has been working independently on what she has dubbed "Yellow Ribbon Project." She was still working out details -- including funding -- but envisioned a 200- to 300-page book with pictures from all 50 states that would be distributed free to soldiers in Iraq.

"It's a gift for American service men and women to show them what we see back here while they're gone," she said. "The war has been declared over, but soldiers are still dying over there."

Yellow ribbon has become a common symbol to remember loved ones sent into combat, although historians have debated its roots.

Michael Taft, head of Archive of Folk Culture at The Library of Congress, said no single form of expression has generated more inquiries. The phone calls and letters increased after combat operations began in Iraq.

As a result, the library posted two articles on its Web site by the late Gerald E. Parsons Jr., a folklorist and reference librarian at the American Folklife Center in Washington, D.C.

While many associate yellow ribbons with the song, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree," Parsons believed their use actually began as a folk tale involving a convict coming home from prison.

The man had written his family and told them that if they wanted him home after his release, they should put a white ribbon in a big apple tree near the railroad tracks, Parsons wrote. If he didn't see a ribbon, the man promised to seek a new life elsewhere. It was said that when the train approached his home, the tree was full of ribbons.

But Parsons also acknowledged that the ribbons became an emblem for the return of an imprisoned hero in 1979 during the Iran hostage crisis. The use of ribbons continued to evolve during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 with soldiers returning home.

Regardless of tradition, the Army embraced Franz's book idea and gave her permission to seek help from across the country.

It was her June 23 e-mail that caught the eye of the Public Affairs Office at Fort Leonard Wood.

"We feel our communities here have been so supportive. We wanted to give them the opportunity to have their work displayed in this book," said Master Sgt. Yolanda Choates, who is overseeing the project at the Pulaski County Army post.

The outpouring of support for the post's nearly 700 soldiers in Iraq has been touching, Choates said. Residents tied yellow ribbons to anything they could shortly after the war began.

She believes the book will become a treasured keepsakes for soldiers who pass through Fort Leonard Wood.

"It will remind them of the roads they have traveled, and the roads they will travel," Choates said.

She received a half-dozen entries within the first week, although the deadline is not until July 18. Peterson's photograph was the first.

"I'm very, very proud of what he's doing," Peterson said of her husband. "For me, it's the absolute least I can do."

That also is the sentiment of Megan Louvet, whose husband is commander of the 5th Engineer's Charlie Company.

She wanted the community to remember Capt. Matt Louvet and his fellow soldiers are guarding the gate of the post where they are stationed and providing support to the infantry.

Louvet submitted a picture showing the four posts of her house festooned with bows. A service flag with a single blue star in the center, and the engineer's flag hang nearby.

The ribbon has already become weathered, but Louvet refuses to replace it.

"To me it's just another testament to how long they've been gone," she said.

Franz encourages people to be creative but tasteful in their entries, due July 31.

"Some soldiers have told me they're going to put yellow ribbons on women," she said. "I told them not to make it to racy."

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Editors: Missouri entries can be sent to Public Affairs, Yellow Ribbon Project, 203 Illinois Ave., Suite 8, Fort Leonard Wood, MO 65473, or e-mailed to williamwwood.army.mil. Deadline is July 18.

Entries also can be e-mailed to Katherine Franz at totallykatherineaol.com. Deadline is July 31.