From Bloomington to Baghdad

Nicole Beaupre, mother of the first Marine killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ryan Beaupre, called into NBC "Nightly News" last week to tell Tom Brokaw the extensive coverage is incredibly difficult for families to watch. The same feeling plagues those students on campus who have loved ones serving overseas.\nWhile advancing technology has helped to make coverage of this war more graphic and detailed than any previous combat media, it is also reminding people in the United States of the reality and repercussions of war for the men and women fighting it.\nSophomore Margie Conely said she and her boyfriend Jamarcus Newsone had been together for only four months when he was called to service on Valentine's Day. Sgt. Newsone, a Ft. Wayne resident, had been stationed in Jacksonville, N.C., and was sent to Kuwait in February. \n"There is no talking on the phone," Conely said. "I can e-mail him occasionally; it just depends on how much time he has."\nShe said she often watches CNN but has to force herself to turn it off.\n"Sometimes my imagination will just run," Conely said.\nFreshman Jill Krieg said she feels the same way. She and her boyfriend, James Cameron Hall, have been together for three years. Hall, 22, is expected to graduate from the Army infantry in two weeks, and the Army has given him the indication he will be shipped to Kuwait if the war is not yet over.\n"I feel so bad for the families," Krieg said. "You really don't know how much it affects loved ones until you have a loved one over there."\nKrieg said she talked to Hall last night for the first time in months. She said he was scared and wished he could be home.\n"I feel a lot of the media coverage is too much," she said. "I feel like they should give more information to the families than anyone else."\nKrieg said she doesn't think they will be able to write to each other once Hall leaves for Kuwait. \n"The hardest thing will be when he goes," she said. "The news will be my only information and contact with him."\nSenior Dan Keeler's fraternity brother, Jared Farnsworth, a Marine reservist, was called to active duty earlier this year for up to two years. Keeler said Farnsworth has written about five letters to the house so far, but the mail has been slow.\n"I totally fear for their lives," he said. "I fear them being captured and tortured more than I fear them being killed"