Inside the Santa Ynez Valley Magazine Spring 2003 Edition

Along way from Los Olivos
Brooke Comer

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Kuwait is a long way from Santa Ynez Valley, and Bradley Hollister has never been so far from home. I was glad when they told me I'd be going overseas, says the 23-year-old Marine, who served a six-year contract before he was released into reserve duty.

It gives me a sense of purpose to be here. I wouldn't want to get pulled away from my job and school just to serve stateside. Hollister's reserve time was almost up when he was ordered to leave his job at Cottage Hospital and classes at Santa Barbara City College, to support Operation Enduring Freedom.

Until now, Hollister's travels have only taken him as far as Mexico and Canada. I'd like to travel around the world, he admits, this just isn't the way I'd planned to do it. I thought I'd work for an airline.

His family has mixed feelings about his going off to fight an imminent war. I'm proud that he's supporting the effort, says his mother, Lisa Hollister., a neonatal I.C.U. nurse at Cottage Hospital. I think we're going to find out that everything Saddam Hussein is doing is worse than what we can imagine.

Active duty in the Middle East is a far cry from the deer hunting, fishing, and motorcycling that Hollister has enjoyed for most of his life. But military service is in his blood. He's a direct descendant of Col. William W. Hollister (of the Hollister Ranch Hollisters) who came to California in the 1800's and made a fortune in sheep farming, and his maternal grandfather, Charles Clark, is an Annapolis graduate who served in World War II and the Korean War.

I'm not a bit worried about Bradley, says Clark. We're dealt certain cards in life, and as American's we drew a lucky hand. Bradley will survive this war, because the American military taught him to survive, to use his ingenuity and intelligence to confront the enemy. I was delighted when he enlisted, because military service is part of being American; it's an opportunity for young men to learn discipline, conform, and build character. Because life isn't a bowl of cherries.

Hollister is taking it day by day. A trained sniper (the number one shooter in California under age 25) attached to an infantry battalion, he may be asked to take risks.

My parents and my friends asked me not to be a hero. They made me promise not to volunteer for anything. But according to Cody Matthews, a fellow Marine and Hollister's best friend since kindergarten, Bradley's the kind of guy who looks after his friends, and I wouldn't be surprised if he saved somebody else at the risk of his own life.

Matthews, a reservist who already served his contract, would be happy to go overseas if I was called up, but I realize the danger over there. He was upset when he heard that Bradley would ship out to Kuwait, but he was like, it's no big deal.' He doesn't want anyone to worry about him.

Hollister got a mixed response when he told his friends that he was shipping out. Some of them were shocked, some got really political about it. Some of them are pro-war, but when someone they knew was going to fight, suddenly they weren't so pro-war anymore. Hollister's sister Brooke, a psychology major at U.C. Santa Cruz, has some anti-war sentiments, but she goes to a liberal school. And she doesn't express them around me.

Brooke Hollister gave her brother a photo album with everybody we know in it to take with him, and a journal to write about his experiences. I don't want Bradley fighting a war for oil, she says, but he's very smart. I know he'll take care of himself. We didn't always get along as we do now, because we're only 20 months apart, and we were very competitive as children. But even then, he always watched out for me. I know he'll be a good soldier.

When Hollister told his sister that he was going overseas, I offered to break his knee for him. I told him he could live under my house. I told him I'd drive him to Canada. It was a joke, because there was nothing he could do. The government made up his mind for him. I don't agree with the politics behind why he's there, and I don't know if he's conflicted about that or not. We've never gone for more than two weeks without talking before, and I just want him to come home. I miss him.

In Kuwait, Hollister misses his family, and the simple, every day pleasures of life that he once took for granted; Norma's sandwiches at Paninos, steak and shrimp at the Hitching Post, football scrimmages, and shooting pool with his friends.

He didn't ask me to send him cookies, says his mother, he asked me for Laker clippings. But hopefully, he'll be home before the next basketball season begins. I miss Bradley, his mother continues, but it's a gift to be able to be involved with something you believe in, especially something that will provide for our safety and peace. And he's a very enjoyable, entertaining kid. I know that whatever Bradley is doing with his life will only benefit him in the future, and lend o his success.