CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq – Having the foundation and support of a Family makes completing any mission easier for Soldiers deployed as part of the Multi-National Division – Baghdad team.

One MND-B noncommissioned officer is currently building on a Family foundation that was established just recently; he is getting to know his biological mother and half-sister, who had been searching for him since he was a child.

When Staff Sgt. Edwin Scott, a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, was born in Okinawa, Japan, nearly 36 years ago, his young mother felt giving her son up for adoption was the best thing she could do for him. She took a few years to get her life together, relocated to Sacramento, Calif., and then began searching for Edwin in 1977.

However, it took nearly 30 years for Valerie Alexander-Bailey to be reunited with her son. It also took the help of Valerie’s now 28-year-old daughter, La’Keisha, who used modern Internet search engines to track down the half-brother she always wanted to grow up with. She even wrote letters to television talk shows like Oprah and Montel Williams.

Edwin, who serves as the division’s noncommissioned officer in charge of video teleconference operations with Company C, Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, said when his sister first contacted him through a letter in May 2007, he was admittedly apprehensive. Growing up, his adoptive parents were honest about his circumstances, but Scott never got his hopes up about meeting his birth parents.

“I just put (the situation) in a little box, closed it, locked it and put it away inside myself,” Edwin said, about dealing with being adopted. “I never thought about what it could have, would have been.”

The letter Edwin got from La’Keisha opened a new door, though. Her detailed explanation of the circumstances surrounding his adoption intrigued him; so finally, he called the phone number she included. Hearing her voice on her phone’s voicemail, Edwin said he sensed there was a connection.

“I heard her voice and I knew. I thought, ‘That’s her. That’s my sister,’” said Edwin.

Edwin used an Internet search to look up La’Keisha after he left a message on her voicemail. Although there were a few different profiles bearing her name, from Sacramento, he said one in particular stuck out. Feeling certain, he jotted down the e-mail address she provided in her profile.

As soon as she received the message, La’Keisha returned Edwin’s call.

Once the two got past the initial awe of confirming their relationship to each other, they exchanged e-mail addresses. When La’Keisha started to tell him hers, Edwin said he didn’t have to write it down. He had picked the right profile.

That initial spark ignited a fiery hunger within the siblings. Catching up on lost time became their biggest priority.

“For the next few weeks, we didn’t speak for less than two hours on the phone, and we passed hundreds of pictures via e-mail,” Edwin said.

Through the conversations they had during their free time that first month, the siblings learned about each other’s personalities, their likes and dislikes, their pasts and their hopes for the future.

“Both of us are definitely stubborn,” Edwin said with a laugh. “She’s way more spoiled than I am though. She’ll tell you that, too.”

La’Keisha seems to believe the two would have been more similar if they had been raised together.

“There are some differences too, but I think that has to do with us growing up apart,” she said.

When they shared photos over the Internet, the siblings were amazed to see how much they resembled one another. Each of them has prominent Filipino features, and La’Keisha said she thinks Edwin bears a close resemblance to their other Family members, also.

“I have my mother’s nose and high cheekbones,” Edwin said in agreement.

Valerie was able to capture lost years, in a way, by looking at Edwin’s pictures.

“He sent me pictures of himself from when he was a baby to where he is today,” said his mother. “I treasure each and every one of them.”

Even though Valerie was excited by seeing the pictures and knowing her son was out there, she was cautious about talking to him for the first time.

“I was afraid to scare him away,” she said. “When he told his new sister how nervous he was about talking to me, I made sure he knew I did not want to pressure him in any way. We communicated first by e-mail only.”

After a little more than a month of continuous communication by telephone and Internet, the blossoming Family decided it was time to arrange a meeting. Since Valerie was already scheduled to arrive in San Antonio in mid-June for a business meeting, she arranged for La’Keisha to fly from Sacramento with her.

Their first meeting was like a sigh of relief for Edwin, Valerie and La’Keisha.

“To finally meet him in person was a blessed day,” Valerie said.
“We were at the airport; he and his Family were picking us up. When he turned to hug me, all the pent-up anxiety from the past 35 years was finally released,” she continued. “I could have stayed in that very spot for hours, but I knew we had to keep moving on.”

Because Edwin and La’Keisha had spent so much time talking on the phone, they were anxious, but not nervous, to finally come face-to-face.

“I think because we had talked so much on the phone before we met in person, for me it felt like some of that uncertainty and nervousness was gone. I was very excited to see Edwin, but in some ways, I felt as if I had already been given an opportunity to know him more before we met,” La’Keisha said.

Since their first meeting, the three have maintained constant contact. Valerie and La’Keisha have visited Edwin in Texas several times, and Edwin had the opportunity to visit Sacramento to walk his mother down the aisle at his sister’s wedding. His presence, La’Keisha noted, was what made her wedding day complete.

Edwin said he plans to move to Sacramento after he retires to make up for lost time with his Family.

“California is the place I ought to be,” he said with a smile.

Such a long journey as Valerie and La’Keisha’s search for Edwin seems exhausting, but La’Keisha said it was perseverance and faith that brought them all together in the end.

“Anything worth fighting for takes time, and with due diligence people will find who they are looking for. If things are meant to be, they will be,” said La’Keisha.

As for Edwin, he is overjoyed about the new relationships he’s now able to forge. He said he encourages anyone looking for an estranged Family member never to give up.

“If you ever had a doubt…if you ever had a percentage of wonder about your biological Family, seek it out,” Edwin advised. “I know my adoptive parents did the best they could for me. I don’t feel like I’m at any disadvantage from my upbringing, but there’s a certain connection (adopted children are) missing. I don’t care how they try to hide it; I don’t care how adamantly they try to sweep it under the rug. There’s always that yearning to know.”

No matter what form it takes, whether adoptive or biological, whether it’s a mother, a grandmother, an uncle or simply a well-trained dog, Family is a necessity. The unconditional love of a Family sees past flaws and imperfections. It offers support, both emotional and physical, when no one else seems to be around. And, in the case of Edwin, Valerie and La’Keisha, it knows no bounds – it can reach across states, countries and even a time gap of more than 30 years.