They no longer catch their breaths when the telephone or doorbell rings. They no longer feel apprehensive when they watch the news.

Just don’t ask them to watch a war movie.

“Our lives have changed,” Sue Evans said. “We’ll never be able to sit through a war action movie without crying and feeling like a part of it.”

A year ago, Evans and about 10 other mothers and grandmothers with sons and grandsons in Iraq formed a support group and began meeting on a regular basis. Now, all their loved ones have returned safely.

“It was a salvation,” Lavetta Cross said of the support group. “I don’t know how any of us would have got through it without each other.”

For much of the past year, the group met weekly to share their fears, joys and personal interests. Now they meet once a month in a Lawrence church.

“We all knew what each of us was going through,” said Cross, whose twin sons, Paul and Peter Cross, served with the Marines in Iraq.

The women even began wearing T-shirts with the acronym M.A.W., short for Mothers At War, printed on the front and their sons’ names on the back. They put flags on their cars and paraded in their own small caravans while honking their horns to show support for the troops. They usually ended up at a restaurant.

“It’s a wonder we didn’t get arrested,” said Evans, whose son, Joshua Evans, was assigned to a signal corps unit in Iraq.

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“We became good friends,” said Carolyn Montney, whose Army son, Grant Montney, was the last to return from the war zone. “You develop a relationship.”

The support group recently gained a newcomer, Vickie Burggraf, whose son, David Burggraf, is with the Kansas National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 130th Field Artillery unit, and recently deployed in the Baghdad area. It is because of her the group thinks it probably will continue to meet.

“We want to be sensitive to her needs and see if she wants to continue,” Montney said.

Vickie Burggraf said she heard about the group through a friend. She has been to two meetings.

“It’s been very helpful,” she said. “Just knowing that there are others who have been through this helps a lot. I have all their phone numbers, and I can call them any time.”