PERU – Army Specialist Kathryn Austin and her fellow troops are in good spirits in the northern part of Iraq right now, her mother, Elizabeth Austin, said.

“We’re extremely proud of her,” said Austin.

Kathryn, a 1999 graduate of Mountain Valley High School, was deployed from her base in Germany to the Iraqi region just before the war started.

She is part of military intelligence for the Army, and learned Arabic as part of her training. She also served in Bosnia and Kosovo as part of the peacekeeping forces there.

Kathryn was scheduled to get out of the service in August after serving four years, but the war extended her hitch. She had planned to enter the University of North Carolina in the fall, but that has been delayed for a year.

Elizabeth Austin said the hitches of all soldiers were extended a year because of the Iraqi war.

Austin and her husband, Gary, were somewhat taken aback when they learned that their daughter had been sent to the Iraq area, but they aren’t so much now.

“She’s on many prayer lists,” she said. “And she’s very proud of the military role in Iraq.”