By A.M. Kelley
Catholic Herald

Mom sends Finnish fortitude to her son in Iraq

HURLEY -- Darlene Kula's son is in Iraq. She sends him a trio of safeguards from home: a mother's prayers, chocolate chip cookies and Finnish fortitude.

Kula lives outside of Hurley on a 40-acre homestead that once belonged to her grandparents, Mary Mattila and Anton Maki. Her son, Col. Thomas Kula, commands the U.S. Army's 130th Brigade and about 3,500 soldiers throughout Iraq.

Darlene Kula's care packages are the stuff of family legend. As a U.S. Military Academy cadet, Thomas Kula complained that his fellow plebes got cakes in the mail while his mother stuffed him with health foods. Now 45 years old, he has been a soldier for 23 years, and Darlene Kula admits that she keeps up this practice today, packing bottles of vitamins among the cookies.

He is not unmindful of his mother's influence -- or ungrateful. When he took command of a battalion in 1999 he wrote to her, "Thanks for giving me the 'sisu' to make it this far."

"Sisu is a Finn thing," Darlene Kula said. "It's determination, persistence and spunk."

It probably tops the list of necessary equipment in Iraq these days for her son. Deployed in September, his brigade finds and destroys roadside bombs, repairs roads, builds bridges and troop living areas, and provides barriers for protection. In an e-mail to the Catholic Herald just before Christmas, Kula said he was "extremely busy" especially during the weeks before the Iraqi national elections in mid-December.

Darlene Kula said her son has not had a permanent residence since he graduated from West Point in 1982. His current home is the brigade's headquarters in Hanau, Germany where his wife, Jeannette, and their two children Danielle, 6, and Matthew, 2, wait for him. He also has a 20-year-old son from a previous marriage, Tom, a college junior in North Carolina.

"My daughter is reading now," he wrote, "and I dream of this time to pass so that I can be home with her snuggled up with a book."

He expects to be in Iraq for a year and said it's tough being away from family but at the same time has an unwavering commitment to his job.

Darlene Kula is a widow and lives alone. Sisu is not absent in her day-to-day life either. She watches the news every morning for reports on Iraq and news of her son.

"He's on the road," she said. "He does not have desk job."

She has two other sons, Edward, a teacher in Tennessee, and Stephen, a controller in the finance department at Appleton Paper Co. in Appleton, Wis.

She was not raised on the Iron County farm with her Finnish relatives. Her father, a native of Hibbing, Minn., came to the area to paint St. Mary of the Seven Dolors in Hurley. Afterwards he moved to Illinois.

"A lot of Finlanders moved to Waukegan for work," she said. "Mother went too."

Darlene Kula grew up there and met her husband Richard in Illinois. They lived, worked and raised their sons in North Chicago and came to the family's farm for vacations.

He passed away eight years ago and even though she was alone and in her seventies, she made a big decision. She moved to Wisconsin's snow belt to build a house on exactly the same site, looking out a kitchen window, with the same view her grandmother had many years ago. In 2004 she moved in.

A cousin lives nearby and keeps her plowed out. She goes to church and participates in senior activities in Hurley, but still that leaves her with time on her hands.

"I say a lot of prayers," Kula said. "Every single day, all through the day for Tom and his troops' safety."

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2006