FARMINGTON – Trudy Marshall waited on customers Monday with a smile on her face as she helped them find what they needed.

The North Jay woman tends to keep herself active and busy with her work as a manager for Labonville Inc.’s stores and her family photography business.

It’s an effort not to constantly worry about her son, Air Force Staff Sgt. Patrick Araujo, a 2000 graduate of Mt. Blue High School, who is on his third tour of duty in the Middle East, his second in Iraq where he’s currently stationed.

“It’s a struggle. We’re proud of him and there isn’t a day that we don’t wonder … Yeah they’re in a war zone, but they’re trying to make it as safe as they possibly can for what they have to go through,” Marshall said. “I worry all the time, but in the same respect, we know this is what he wants to do and he wants to make a difference.”

As a single mother, when her son was growing up, she said, she couldn’t afford to put him through college. Her son didn’t want to be a farmer or a logger, he wanted something else beyond that, she said.

“He wanted financial structure,” Marshall said. “He wanted to help people.” He decided to join the military and is now intent on helping Iraqi children have a better future.

He told his mother in high school, “I want to see places, see the world and everyone here is going to be proud of me,” Marshall said.

Araujo, a high-voltage electrical-wiring specialist formerly of New Sharon, was recently recognized with the Soldier of the Week Award in the Air Force Legend Series, for his leadership and dedication to his work as a project manager overseeing installation of electrical poles and upgrading electrical systems in Iraq.

“Patrick would like his home state to know that they are making a difference in Iraq, as little as it may seem,” Marshall said. “The commitment and sacrifice can be overwhelming at times, but when an award is presented to an outstanding soldier everyone in the U.S. should be proud.”

Her son enlisted at 17, through an early enrollment program. He was a senior in high school.

It’s been a tough couple of years for him and the rest of the family, his mother said, especially when his cousin, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Corey Dan of Norway was killed in Iraq in 2006. At the time, Dan was stationed about 40 miles from Araujo.

Araujo has a young family of his own, his wife, Elizabeth, a medical technician in the Air Force, and two children, Tyler, 2, and Kasha, 3 months, based at the Beale Air Force Base in California.

The couple’s children would come to Maine to stay with her, Marshall said, if her son and his wife get deployed at the same time.

Everyone in the community is supportive of her and her family, she said, including donating items to send to Araujo this Christmas on a wreath.

Marshall’s hope for the new year is that her son cross-trains into another profession because he wouldn’t be deployed to Iraq again, she said. He cross-trained previously as a military police officer to electrical systems technician.

Soldiers based in the country are noticing that the military “seems to be pulling troops stateside to Iraq,” Marshall said.

Those who are deployed to other countries such as Japan, Germany and France seem to be staying put because there is stability there, she added.

Marshall’s wish for 2008 is that her son and his family are happy.

She doesn’t like to say her bigger wish because she doesn’t want to jinx it.

But for the time being, she’s looking forward to him coming off this tour of duty in March.