Richard and Michelle Mason’s family said they’d be home for Christmas.

They weren’t kidding.

Nearly 30 family members — including sons, daughters, grandchildren and cousins — are spending the week at the Masons’ small one-story Lawrence house.

But the star attractions are their two sons, Benjamin Mason and Joshua Mason. Both were wounded this year while serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

“I didn’t know if it would all come together or not, but the kids did it,” Michelle Mason said. “We prayed for them all to get back safely and they did.”

The Masons’ daughter, Paula Lootens, said the reunion was a necessity this year.

“It has been a harrowing spring and summer, and we felt it was really important for us to be together,” said Lootens, who returned home with her Navy husband, Matthew Lootens. Family members pooled their money to help pay for the Lootenses’ long drive from San Diego.

Under attack

Benjamin brought his wife, Marylee, and their baby girl, Harmony. Joshua’s fiancee, Theri, a native of Germany, is seeing Lawrence for the first time.

Matthew Lootens, left, and his wife, Paula, hold their year-old son, John, as Marylee Mason and her husband, Benjamin, talk in baby language to their 4-month-old daughter, Harmony. Nearly 30 members of the Mason family are spending the holidays together after an exhausting year in which Benjamin and his brother Joshua, not pictured, were injured in Iraq. The Mason brothers serve in the U.S. Army; brother-in-law Matthew Lootens serves in the Navy. The family spent Christmas Eve together in their Lawrence home for the first time in years.

Benjamin, 22, is a mechanic with the Third Infantry Division, the unit that led the drive to Baghdad in April. In May, he was standing on top of a building when a bullet hit him in the arm. Seconds later, a rocket-propelled grenade hit a truck parked beside the building and Benjamin was hit by shrapnel.

Joshua, 24, who joined his brother in the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, also was wounded in May. A Patriot missile battery crewman, Joshua was riding in a truck through Tikrit on the way back to Kuwait when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the side of the road.

“All of a sudden something blew up and stuff came through the truck,” he said.

The two brothers have recovered and their units are out of Iraq.

Family members braced for the worst last spring was when they heard that a Third Infantry Division convoy carrying mechanics had been attacked. Soldiers were killed and the now-famous Jessica Lynch and others were captured.

The news was like a nightmare for the family.

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Richard Mason, 56, a Navy veteran who served on Mekong Delta patrol boats during the Vietnam War, heard about the attack on the radio while driving a truck in New Mexico.

“The radio wasn’t working very good and my cell phone wasn’t working, and I just about went nuts,” Richard Mason said.

Other family members also feared Benjamin might have been in the convoy. Matthew Lootens found his wife, Paula, watching cable TV news at 4 a.m.

“I told her to go to bed — she couldn’t change anything,” Matthew said.

“It was a nightmare and a half,” said Mary Mason, another sister of Paula, Benjamin and Joshua, as she summed up her emotions. “You couldn’t find out anything.”

Marylee Mason and her husband, Benjamin, kiss while their 4-month-old daughter, Harmony, rests in her mother's arms. Benjamin, who was injured in Iraq, saw his daughter for the first time in August.

The Masons’ older brother, Richard Roy, had kicked the smoking habit. But he started smoking again when his brothers went to war. He still smokes.

“It helped calm me down,” the 36-year-old said. “I’ll quit again someday.”

Gifts at home

Having the family together for the holidays is like a return to childhood for Richard and Benjamin, who said the family had always been close. They reminisced about Christmases when they were home as children.

“We used to have to come up with a plan of attack to get them (parents) out of bed on Christmas morning,” Joshua said. “We’d run in and jump on their bed to wake them up.”

This year, the family got perhaps the best gift when the boys came home from Iraq — and the rest of the clan showed up to celebrate.

And some of them realized there was something else, as well. Alda Klien, a cousin of the Mason siblings, said the events of the past year had given family members a new perspective.

“They almost died for something we take for granted,” Klien said.

Christmas for the Mason clan will be a big event this year as, from left, Paula Lootens, Matthew Lootens, Theri Sipos, Joshua Mason, Marylee Mason and Benjamin Mason, are with family for the first time in years.