Her son Michael was drafted in 1968, and she would later write of her fears of being "in a quiet corner of an airport and say[ing] goodbye to a son in uniform, knowing in your heart that you'll never see him again."
With the death benefit she received from the military, Mullen purchased two half-page ads in The Des Moines Register, with the first ad featuring 714 crosses and the second with 719 to represent the number of Iowa residents killed during the war [REF].