Soldiers called from overseas. Wives called other wives. When newscasters began reporting the capture of Saddam Hussein before dawn Sunday, phone lines crackled and bleary-eyed family members turned to television, relishing the news they hope will bring their soldiers home.
The phone rang at 5:30 a.m. in Deborah Cooper’s Glenview home. When she picked up, she heard the voice of her husband and the cheers of soldiers.
Army Staff Sgt. Terry Cooper, 28, was calling from a mess hall in Kuwait, telling his wife to turn on the TV.
Hours later, he called again. His unit was coming home.
“A double shot of good news,” his wife said.
The capture of Hussein was a badly needed morale boost for servicemen and women and their families, who for months have endured reports of casualties, extended tours of duty and more deployments.
Stacy Davidson, 24, of Romeoville calls her husband in Iraq at 5 a.m. every Sunday. She was on the phone with him when the news broke.
“There was lots of hoorays,” she said. “It was a bunch of guys cheering.”
Davidson said she could not help but think: “Oh my God. Do they get to come home sooner?”
“That they caught him is a big win for us,” she said. “I honestly didn’t think it was ever going to happen.”
Carmen Faczek, 43, of Carol Stream has refused to watch the news since the conflict began, worried that her three small children would be frightened by the reports of casualties. But Sunday, Faczek turned on the TV and spent the morning fielding calls from family members, debating whether the development will make Iraq safer for her husband.
The 6 a.m. call from her sister in Miami was wonderful news, she said, “but in the back of my mind, I am thinking: Are Iraqis going to retaliate?”
Her husband told her later that he had fled a town square after mistaking celebratory gunfire for an ambush.
“He didn’t realize what had happened until he got back to his base,” she said.
Karen Dati, whose husband has been in the Middle East for nearly a year, spent much of Sunday talking to friends and relatives.
“Our guys have been there for so long, the bottom line was we could not pull out until we caught him,” said Dati, 39, of Chicago.
Soldiers’ morale has been low, she said: “So much has been going wrong for so long. Finally, something is going right.”
When she spoke with her husband later Sunday and told him it will be over soon, he tempered her enthusiasm.
“Yeah, but we’re still here,” he said.
For military personnel who have returned to the States, Hussein’s capture seemed a vindication.
Randy Crews, a military intelligence officer who returned from Kuwait in June, was puttering in the bedroom of his Lake in the Hills home when his wife called him to the TV set.
“My first emotion was exuberance,” said Crews, who was in Kuwait for 13 months working with many other intelligence officers who were searching for Hussein. He described grueling 18-hour shifts seven days a week and said he came home feeling he had left the job unfinished.
The capture “brought closure to a lot of people who spent so much time trying to find him,” Crews said.
Army Lt. Col. Fred Britton, who lives at Ft. Sheridan in the far north suburbs, said he learned unofficially about the capture late Saturday.
“I was very pleased because the military has been criticized, especially intelligence, that we have been unable to find Saddam Hussein,” he said.
Britton said he was not toasting the capture.
“Celebration is a little overstatement,” he said. “Everyone is pleased the mission is accomplished.”
