War Coverage -
The Life of Riley
By Tom Deignan
It was bad enough when Jane Riley’s son was taken prisoner in Iraq back in March. Sgt. James Riley, who grew up in the South Jersey town of Pennsauken, was one of the first American POWs taken by Saddam Hussein’s forces, outside Nasiriya.
But then in April, the Irish American family was dealt another blow. James’ sister Mary, 29, died after a long battle with a neurological disease.
Friends again and again marveled at Jane Riley’s perseverance as she coped with these two tragedies. But even she was uncertain how she would cope if her POW son did not survive his ordeal.
“The biggest fear is that they’ll bring him back in a coffin,” she said not long after James was captured, along with six other American soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed an Army supply convoy around Nasiriya.
Jane Riley, for one, believed her son would make it home.
“His tenacity and stubbornness will get him through this,” she said. “For us, it will be our faith and our family that will get us through.”
And it did just that. On April 13, James Riley and his comrades were rescued. Finally, a little light shone on the Riley family, following Mary’s death, and the agonizing weeks James spent as a POW.
Friends said the Rileys are a strong, tight-knit Irish American family.
“[Jane is] very strong,” family friend Joe Walsh told Irish America. The Chairman and CEO of Curtis Circulation, which employs Jane as an estimator, Walsh said the company was planning to give Jane and her husband as much time as they needed to recover from the grueling weeks they experienced.
“It’s the least we can do,” said Walsh, whose own parents came to the U.S. from Cork.
Walsh said that Jane Riley as well as her husband have strong Irish roots. Her grandparents were Kellys and Donovans who emigrated, while her husband’s ancestors are said to have left Ireland for England, then New Zealand. That’s where Jane met her husband, Athol, while in New Zealand with her father, who worked for the State Department.
The Rileys raised three children and, up until this year, were simply one of many solid Irish American families from New Jersey. The Rileys moved to South Jersey when James was 10. He graduated Pennsauken High School in 1990 and joined the Army.
“That’s what he always wanted to do,” Jane said.
The year got off to a terrible start for the Rileys when, in January, their daughter Mary slipped into a coma due to complications from a neurological disease. Then on March 24, images of James Riley as an Iraqi POW were flashed across the world.
When he was captured, Sgt. Riley was with the 507th Maintenance Company, part of the 111th Air Defense Artillery Brigade.
According to The Washington Post, for roughly two weeks, the prisoners could hear the nightly bombing raids on Baghdad. It is said they were taken to as many as eight separate locations.
In Riley’s first interview, he described the harrowing conditions.
“At times we could hear the shell casings from the A-10s landing on the buildings we were in.” Of his initial capture, he said: “It wasn’t a small ambush. It was a whole city. And we were getting shot from all different directions as we were going down the road — front, rear, left, right.”
Nine U.S. soldiers eventually died in that battle. Four others were rescued later the same day by U.S. forces. Another, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, was famously rescued on April 1.
Of course, grim news awaited Riley at home. According to one report, James asked his Mom over the phone how sister Mary was doing and she was unable to break the news to her son. Finally, James’ father revealed that Mary had died.
Nevertheless, friends were amazed by the strength Jane displayed during these terrible times. As an indication of her selflessness, they point to her wish that any donations people want to offer to the family instead be made to The Ronald McDonald House charity.
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