The mom of a US soldier whose determined look during deployment Friday captured the nation — and landed on The Post’s front page — says she had a special departing message for her New York-native son.
“I’ll be very honest — I said, ‘You go there and kick ass,’” Milly Otero, 65, told The Post on Tuesday.
The proud mom said her son, Command Sgt. Maj. Bryan Otero, who grew up in Bronxville in Westchester County, phoned her New Year’s Day to tell her he was being deployed overseas for the fourth time.
The deployment from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where Bryan is stationed, came after the US killed a top Iranian general — and as Iran threatened swift retaliation.
“It was Jan. 1 at 6:14 in the morning,” Milly said of the call from her son.
“Can you imagine that phone call? He’s been in the Army 24 years. … He’s been to Iraq twice, to Afghanistan. And now this.
“I’m very, very proud of him,” the mom said of her 42-year-old boy.
Still, “it is frightening. He’s defending us, but I don’t want to lose him, either. Listen, that’s my baby son.”
The mother said she was able to comfort herself knowing that her late father, an Army master sergeant in Korea, would be watching over his beloved grandson — and says she reminded Bryan of that.
“I said, ‘You know your grandfather took you there, and he’ll bring you back. He’ll bring you and your soldiers back,’” Milly remembered.
“He asked me for my blessing,” Milly said of Bryan. “He said, ‘Mom, I don’t know when will be the next time I’ll talk to you, but I love you.’ I said, “Take care of yourself, I love you.’”
She said she also told him to “kick ass” and, “He said, ‘Mom, I know that.'”
Asked if Bryan was nervous about the deployment, his mother said, “No, that’s not him.”
Milly said Bryan — who is married with three sons and a grandson — had called to give her a head’s up about the deployment before she saw anything in the news.
I was shocked,” she said. “I said, ‘Bryan, when you leaving? He said, ‘Mom, I cannot tell you.’ He just wanted to let me know he’s going to deployed. He can’t say that day, the next day … because it’s a mission.”
Milly said Bryan’s wife, Amy, saw the intense photo of him in The Post and called her.
“She said, ‘Mom, it came out in The Post!’” said Milly, who has an older son, too.
“You have no idea how many papers I have in my house,” Milly said of The Post. “All my friends bought all the papers. I bought one for everybody here in the salon.”
Amy Otero, 43, added to The Post that when she saw her husband in the photo, “It brought me to tears. Because that’s him, leading his troops.”
She said she learned around 7 a.m. New Year’s Eve that her husband was being deployed, apparently to Kuwait.
“I told him I loved him, and me and the boys, we got this. Just take care of your soldiers, take care of the young ones, and just come back home to us,’” said Amy, whose father was an Army staff sergeant who served in Vietnam and during Desert Storm.
“It was very overwhelming,” the wife said of the goodbye.
She said she loves that her husband is part of the 82nd Airborne Division.
“It’s a huge family when you don’t have your family with you,” Amy said.
She said she last spoke to Bryan on Saturday “for 2 minutes.
“He said, ‘Hey, baby, I’m good. We’re OK, love you and the boys,’” the wife recalled.
“It does break our heart because he’s gone” overseas, Amy said. “But he’s very focused, and he’s able to do his job because he knows his family is strong.
“We all know what we signed up for.”
