INNOCENCE LOST: THE HIDDEN CASUALTIES OF THE IRAQ WAR PROFILES Allen Nolan By ANNETTE RAINVILLE Scripps Howard News Service December 15, 2004 Despite losing her husband to the war, Gail Nolan followed through with the adoption plans that she and her husband, Allen Nolan, 38, began last year. A mother of two from Marietta, Ohio, Gail's husband died in Iraq on Sept. 18. In The following month, Gail was named the adoptive mother of Euanna, 5, Franky, 4, and Robert, 3, whose parents were mentally disabled. "He was a good daddy and loved his kids," she said. "When he died, I was just like, please don't let anything happen where I lose them, too." Gail's two older sons, Roman, 11, and Keenan, 9, took the death of their father hard and said they didn't want it to be true. Euanna, the only girl, regularly talks about her "daddy's box" _ his coffin _ and will ask when her daddy is coming home. "We would want to be selfish and have our daddy, but God knows what people need more than we do," Gail said. Nolan suffered severe burns when his convoy vehicle struck a bomb and then came under small arms fire in Balad, Iraq. When Gail and her 11-year-old son visited her husband at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, she said his hands and arms were burned down to the muscle. She sang songs to her unconscious husband and told him how much she loved him before he was taken into surgery on Sept. 30. Nolan died shortly after. Gail had been prepared to take her husband home and care for him but admitted she was not prepared for him to die. "I always thought we'd have another 50 years together," she said. Gail will continue to home-school her five children. In January she is set to see her doctor about the status of a fibroid tumor growing in her uterus. Originally she had scheduled to have the tumor removed in October, but because of her husband's death, her doctor recommended she postpone her surgery for a time when she is emotionally ready. Although her life has changed, her views of the war remain the same. "Part of you doesn't want them to get killed, but then you think of the children that are being helped by it and they're worth it."