Mother and Daughter return from serving in Iraq

Life in a war zone would be much easier for anyone, if you could take mom along. That`s how it worked for one Arkansas National Guardsman -- she was sent to Iraq three months after her mother got there. Now both of them Sgt. Angela Carey, and her 20-year old daughter, Specialist Courtland Faulkner are back in the States. Two days before she was scheduled to leave Iraq, Faulkner was in an accident flipping her 5-ton truck upside down. She survived with a fractured vertebra. "And I was just relieved, and just thanking my guardian angel," Faulkner said. But she had not only a guardian angel taking care of her. Unlike most injured soldier, her mom was at her side. "I had just gotten off that morning from the clinic," Carey said. "It didn`t take me very long to get back to the clinic." The two were stationed together at Camp Cooke, Iraq for the last 11 months. "It`s comforting to know that she`s there. But it`s also stressful when you know that you`re getting mortared and rocketed and to know where she`s at and to see she`s ok," Carey said. "We each had someone to go to when we were both feeling homesick. I could talk to her about army issues when I couldn`t talk to anyone else about them," Faulkner explained. In Iraq, Carey served as an army medic. She saw "a lot of gruesome stuff. A lot of gunshots" she said. After her daughter`s accident, she says it didn`t take long for the medic in her to kick in, after the mom did. Her daughter says it always would. "Make sure you eat. Make sure you drink your water," she`d remind her. Both back at home now, Carey has an easier time keeping tabs on her daughter. "When we first got there, we carried walkie-talkies," she said. And Faulkner has Sergeant Mom to thank for making life at war a little less stressful.