Promotions were handed out posthumously for several of the 14 soldiers who died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Iraq on Wednesday as families from New Jersey to California prepared to welcome home their sons.

Marian Stockhausen of Warrenville, Ill., was exhausted but polite yesterday after fielding untold media requests and condolences for her son, Phillip John Brodnick, 25, who was promoted from Army specialist to corporal hours after the crash that killed Brodnick and nine of his fellow soldiers from Schofield Barracks.

"You can imagine it's just a dreadful time," Stockhausen said. "But we want his name remembered. We definitely do not want him forgotten."

Spc. Michael A. Hook of Altoona, Pa., would have turned 26 today — the same day his body is scheduled to arrive on U.S. soil at Delaware's Dover Air Force Base.

"He'll be home on his birthday," said Hook's stepmother, Belinda Hook, of Little Egg Harbor, N.J.

Belinda and her husband, Larry Hook, were preparing to leave for Altoona to join extended family when Hook's body makes its way to Pennsylvania.

"We all want to be there when Michael arrives," Belinda said.

In Caruthersville, Mo., it seemed yesterday like the entire town of about 7,000 was waiting for the body of Spc. Ricky Bell, 21, one of four Black Hawk crewmen with the 6th Air Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Lewis, Wash., who died in the crash.

To bring Bell home — possibly as soon as tomorrow — his aunt, Glenda Overbey, helped the Army find a landing strip at least 3,000 feet long for his plane.

She finally found one — a city-owned airstrip 4,000 feet long.

"I wouldn't exactly call it a municipal airport," Overbey said. "But we have to get Ricky home. It will be a huge turnout. The Bells are from Hayti, Mo., in Pemiscot County and the whole county will be there."

In Willoughby Hills, Ohio, plans were under way to greet Cpl. Joshua S. Harmon's body with military pomp and a firefighters' salute in honor of Harmon's father, Richard, the town fire chief.

"There are no formal plans yet, it's not concrete," said Fire Lt. Tim Serazin, a family friend who was serving as spokesman. "But we'd like to have a fire engine there at the airport as a sign of respect for his father."

LOVE FOR HAWAI'I

In their grief yesterday, the families of the fallen soldiers from Schofield Barracks found brief moments of happiness when they spoke of their sons' affection for Hawai'i.

"He said he'd never seen a place so beautiful," Belinda Hook said of Michael. "The beaches were great, the people were great. He was in paradise. Can you imagine coming out of basic boot camp in Fort Benning, Ga., and being told you're going to Hawai'i? He was thrilled and we were thrilled, too. Where else would you want to see your son? Thank God he wasn't going to Oklahoma."

Garret McLead, who was promoted posthumously yesterday from corporal to sergeant, grew up learning to surf around the small Texas town of Rockport and loved the waves in Hawai'i, said Tim Jayroe, a family friend and Rockport's police chief.

"He was an avid surfer," Jayroe said. "So Hawai'i meant a lot to him."

Like many other parents, Stockhausen had planned to meet her son in the Islands after he returned from Iraq.

"We have not been to Hawai'i before and were going to come down at Christmas," she said. "He sent us pictures and he really seemed to enjoy it."

Several parents, relatives and friends spoke of the soldiers' devotion to their comrades, sense of duty and the mission in Iraq.

Capt. Corry Paul Tyler, 29, of Woodbine, Ga., did not have to return to Iraq with his company from Fort Lewis because his father had died last year, leaving him as the surviving male in the family, said the family's pastor, William P. Warnock, who had been a pastor at Waikiki Baptist Church from 1975 to 1977.

But Tyler volunteered for a third tour anyway.

"That's the kind of integrity he had," Warnock said.

Like others, however, Warnock expressed anger over the deaths of 14 soldiers in one incident.

He listed wartime leaders from Alexander the Great to Abraham Lincoln to Harry Truman who grieved along with family members at funerals for fallen soldiers.

Warnock urged President Bush to do the same.

Warnock, who served in Vietnam as a clerk with an artillery unit, said, "Mr. President, please, take it from a fellow Methodist: Go to at least one funeral and see the sorrow of that family."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.