2 Soldiers 6 Kids 1 Exhausted Grandmother.

Major conflict in Iraq may have ended, but for families like the Holcombs, with both parents overseas, the battle continues at home and abroad. Inside a condominium on this dusty Army base, Sue Bearer savors her last few moments of peace, sipping coffee and taking a drag from her cigarette. This is the unseen Iraqi war, the quiet, unheralded heroism of the home front. For seven months now, since early February, Sue Bearer has been mother and father to her six grandkids because both their parents are on active duty in Iraq. For many the war may have entered its final stage on April 9, when U.S. Marines helped topple Saddam Hussein's statue in central Baghdad. But the coda has been long and brutal--for the 140,000 U.S. troops still deployed in sweltering temperatures and under constant threat and for their families back home, for whom it won't end until they meet safely again.Bearer's son Vaughn Holcomb, 40, and his wife, Simone, 30, don't know when they will be home; perhaps next spring.