GETTING WORD STRAIGHT FROM NO. 1 PEN PAL.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

Iraq ``To answer your question, Bryana, I do not think it is hard to protect our country. It is never hard to protect something that you love.''- Sgt. Thomas Guglielmo, Charlie Company, 326th Engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne Division

He was their long-distance hero, their No. 1 pen pal. A brave soldier fighting a war in a faraway country they could not spell or even pronounce until their teacher told them about him.

It gets lonely being away from home for so long, Diana Dorland told her second-grade students at Van Nuys Elementary School last October. The soldier's aunt, a friend of hers, said her nephew missed his family a lot, and was feeling down.

Maybe if the the kids wrote him letters telling him they were thinking about him, and sent their pictures, it would lift his spirits. So, the 28 second-graders took out their pencils and paper, and wrote to Sgt. Thomas Guglielmo.

On Monday morning, their long-distance hero - just back from Iraq - walked into their classroom in full uniform to say thank you.

Guglielmo and his wife, Becky, flew all the way from their home in Kentucky to pay a surprise visit to the second-graders from Van Nuys who raised the spirits of Charlie Company during some dark, dangerous times in Iraq.

``We read your letters and put your pictures up to remind us every day of why we were here,'' the 14-year career Army sergeant told the kids. ``You made us remember there were people back home, outside of our families, who thought and cared about us.''

For almost an hour, Guglielmo answered every question the kids threw at him - from the meaning of every patch and decoration on his uniform to the questions that cut right to his heart.

``Did any of your friends die?'' a little girl asked.

``Yes,'' Guglielmo said.

``What were their names?'' a little boy wanted to know.

Guglielmo paused, took a deep breath, and in a choked voice recited the names of the soldiers who didn't make it back.

``We have two children, 7 and 9, about the same age these children are, so we know what they are thinking,'' Becky said, standing in the hallway while her husband gathered the students around him and read them a book about the American flag.

``When Tom's home, he walks our kids to the school bus in the morning, and they'll ask their daddy if he's going to be here when they get home from school.

``It's hard sometimes, having a soldier for a father, but they're so proud of him.''

This trip to see the students in Dorland's class was one of the first things her husband wanted to do after returning from a year's duty with the 101st Airborne in Iraq, Becky said.

Tom wanted to meet the kids whose pictures and letters were posted all over his company's barracks. To meet Jazmine, who wanted to know whether he missed his family very much.

To meet Shirley, who asked whether he liked his job - yes, he did. And Walter, who asked whether it was very dangerous in Iraq. Yes, it was.

And, of course, to meet Bryana, who made him think long and hard for an answer when she asked, ``Is it hard protecting our country?''

No, Guglielmo wrote her back, it's never hard protecting something you love.

Dorland realizes it will probably be a couple of days before she can get her students' feet back on the ground, but that's OK. There's nothing she can teach them this week that's going to be more important than what they learned from their No. 1 pen pal.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Army Sgt. Thomas Guglielmo answered every question the second-graders had for him, including whether he had friends who were killed.

(2) Second-graders in Diana Dorland's class at Van Nuys Elementary School gathered around returned Army Sgt. Thomas Guglielmo, who wrote to the students from Iraq.

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer