Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives

by Tanya Biank

  “Brian, if we put an ornament on it, it’ll fall over,” Rita had said when they brought the tree home a few weeks earlier. Well, the tree was still standing. And the kids had gifts, mostly from Brian’s parents or Fort Bragg’s chaplains’ programs that helped Army families in need of holiday food, clothes, and toys.

  Even if she didn’t love her sweatshirt, she had to admit it was amazing how Brian had walked right into an instant family and become “Daddy.” The boys adored him for it.

  People often told Brian how much her blond-haired sons resembled him. “Everyone tells us that,” he’d respond. Strangers and acquaintances would never have imagined the family’s actual path to Fayetteville, but Rita wanted to leave her past in southern Alabama. All she wanted to do now was meet other wives, make her husband happy, and be the best Army wife on Fort Bragg.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I started hearing about the Delta Force compound not long after I moved to Fayetteville. The home base of what was officially the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, a secret unit specializing in international counterterrorism, the place generated rumors like a news rag. Supposedly there were cameras in the trees and secret underground tunnels that led to the drop zones on Fort Bragg. But that was just Fayetteville lore. For the record there are no tunnels, and the only cameras are inside the compound on tall poles. Granted, they catch every movement. Anyone who stops a vehicle outside the fence is politely told to move on. And if anyone tries to take a photo, guards firmly confiscate the film.

  The secrecy goes with the territory. For years the Army never acknowledged that this unit existed. Even now, when an operator is killed, his real unit is never named. As a reporter, I could always tell, though, when a casualty was a Delta Force guy: The giveaway was his Army identification only as a Special Operations soldier. If pressed further the Army would say he was from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, United States Army Special Operations Command, which is an umbrella unit. Because of the secret nature of the organization, there is no public recognition for the men in Delta Force. But those I’ve met over the years carry a lot of self-pride, knowing they are the best at what they do.

  Today when regular soldiers drive past the compound on their way to Sicily Drop Zone, one of them will inevitably say, “There’s the Delta compound,” then mockingly whisper, “Oh, but it doesn’t exist, shhh.” It’s a multimillion-dollar facility, and people have a lot of wild ideas about why it’s there. I discovered that the truth is more pragmatic than sexy. There the men can train without distraction. There are no barracks, but it has an excellent mess hall, an Olympic-size swimming pool and a climbing wall, an airliner used for hostage-rescue practice, world-class “shooting houses” for close-quarter battle, and seven outdoor firing ranges.

  Just how much money goes into Delta is classified, but my sources put it this way: The government pours money into Delta as if it were a billion-dollar NFL team, ensuring that its operators have the best of the best in resources, weaponry, and equipment. Unlike the ranges on Bragg, where units had to compete for time to train, if an operator wanted to go to the range on Saturday afternoon all he had to do was show up. It was an elite training ground for an elite fighting force.

  A few days after Christmas, Andrea Floyd turned on her radio and caught the middle of George Strait’s Love Without End, Amen as she veered her blue Chevy Astro van onto McKellars Lodge Road, heading away from Fort Bragg’s day-to-day garrison grind. Pike Field slipped away behind her, and she continued down the wooded two-lane highway, which crossed the northwestern portion of the military reservation. Andrea used to drive a Jeep Cherokee, but the van was perfect for carting around her three kids. She looked at the two boys in her rearview mirror. They were blond, like their mother. Strapped in the backseat were BJ, four, and Garrett, three, giggling and poking each other. Her daughter, Harlee, six, was still at school.

  The song mixed with the chatter of gunfire from Range 25, where soldiers wearing Kevlar helmets and camouflage lay prone on reddish-orange dirt, using their M4 machine guns to fire at targets some three hundred meters away. The sight held the same level of interest for Andrea as a cow pasture. The rap-rap-rap of gunfire was a familiar sound at Fort Bragg, and she was no stranger to shooting ranges. In the early nineties she had been an Army private in Baumholder, Germany, fresh out of high school, when she met and fell in love with another soldier on a ski trip. She’d had a few boyfriends before that, but Brandon Floyd was the first man she was ever smitten with. He had charm and good looks: dark brown hair and hazel-green eyes under a prominent brow. And she liked his slight Southern accent, a remnant from his upbringing in the hills of Arkansas.

  Like her husband, she had been an excellent marksman. Brandon loved to hunt, sometimes with a rifle, sometimes with a bow, always with his dogs. He had bought Andrea a bow of her own and wanted to introduce the children to his passion as well. So they now had their own BB and paintball guns. Andrea didn’t mind as long as the kids were supervised. No, guns were not unfamiliar objects. Brandon kept a handgun in the glove compartment of his truck, and he had bought one for Andrea, too, for the times he was away.

  It was just after Christmas, and Andrea had been running some errands after taking the kids to see the horses at the Fort Bragg Riding Stables. Someday she’d own enough land to have a couple of horses, one for her and one for Harlee. Someday … she thought.

  Andrea passed Ranges 24 and 23, which soon gave way to longleaf pines that hugged the road. Another mile down, a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire replaced the pines, surrounding a compound of cream-colored buildings with shiny red aluminum roofs and landscaped with enough Bradford pear trees to rival a retirement community. The place had its own staff to look after the well-kept grounds. Nothing else on Fort Bragg looked like this.

  Andrea passed a few men jogging along the edge of the road. Their eyes were shaded by Wiley X sunglasses, and their legs were noticeably well muscled. Concrete barriers and rust-colored steel spikes lined the fence, which was posted with warning signs, in front of a wide trench. Andrea turned her van toward the entrance of the Delta Force compound, slowing down as she approached the guardhouse.

  Andrea took out her cell phone and speed-dialed Brandon’s number. For her and most wives of Delta Force operators, the cell phone was a necessity, always by her side. In Brandon’s line of work she never knew when or where he was going or when he was coming back. Some spouses handled the separations better than others, and many marriages didn’t last as a result of them. In their case, Andrea believed the separations helped keep them together.

  Andrea showed her ID to the guard. She’d called earlier to say when she would be arriving and why.

  Delta wives have to get used to this, since procedures are not this meticulous in the conventional Army. There are pluses, though. Delta is extremely efficient, and wives don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy or the long waits that can plague other wives trying to get something done on post.

  The guard nodded, and a section of the chain-link fence lifted at an angle, like a drawbridge. Andrea drove through, and the fence lowered behind her. In front of her was another guard shack and another fence—this one she didn’t have access to pass through. She parked off to the side. She was in a demilitarized zone of sorts.

  “Hey, Brandon, I just pulled up to the welcome center,” she said into the phone. She was there to swap vehicles with him so she could get the oil in his truck changed. She walked into the welcome center and handed over her ID, which a clerk checked against a family-member roster: “I’m here to see my husband, Sergeant First Class Floyd.” They’d do the swap right there. Wives were only allowed farther inside the compound for such special occasions as organized family activities when their movement was restricted to specific areas, the unit’s annual June picnic, for example. It was always a big hit with the kids. The men set up mini-parachute-jump towers, and the kids got to climb on vehicles and look at weapons.

  At other times if the
kids had the sniffles and needed to be seen at the clinic, or if Andrea had to update Brandon’s power of attorney, she called in advance and was given an appointment time. Someone would meet her at the gate, and she would be escorted inside the second fence. At no time were wives ever left alone. Even if someone got through the second gate by mistake, he or she wouldn’t be able to get into any of the buildings, which required PIN codes to gain entry.

  Another driver in an SUV pulled up to the second gate and flashed the guard a photo ID badge. The guard nodded, and a section of the fence lifted again, allowing the SUV to pass through. The vehicle was now, literally, “behind the fence.” That’s how operators sometimes referred to the compound, when they were trying to be discreet about where they worked. Old-timers called the place “the Ranch” or “Wally World.”

  A few moments later a large silver truck pulled up, and a tall, lean man wearing a T-shirt and jogging shorts—despite the winter air—jumped out, leaving the truck running. “Hey, I’ve only got a minute,” Brandon told Andrea as he gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he said hello to the boys, got them out of their car seats, and helped settle them into the truck. Brandon had just come from the weight room.

  While the rest of Bragg officially takes lunch from 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M., operators have from 10:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. each day to work out, eat, and take care of their personal business. Two and half hours may seem generous, but an operator’s hours are unpredictable, and when they’re on missions they work around the clock.

  Andrea hadn’t totally forgiven her husband for being such a grump during Christmas. Despite an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World and a three-day cruise, it had been a miserable holiday for the Floyds—their worst family vacation ever. Disney World was so cold and overcast that they had to buy thirty-dollar sweatshirts for themselves and the kids, and once they got on the ship it rained a lot. Brandon was seasick, and he spent most of his time in the room, which was pretty cramped for his six foot one frame. He hadn’t wanted to go on the trip to begin with, and his mood blanketed the rest of the family.

  The trip had been a gift given with the best of intentions. Earlier in November, Andrea had given birth to beautiful twin girls as a surrogate mother, and the trip was a present from the twins’ parents. Her family initially thought she was crazy for doing such a thing, but Andrea had been stubborn about it. “What better thing can I do than to help someone have a baby?” she asked them.

  Andrea had gotten the idea the previous Christmas, when the Floyds’ pastor gave a Sunday sermon that talked about each person’s gifts and how they could be used to help others. What was Andrea good at? Having babies, she joked. But the sermon stuck with her, and so did the idea of birthing another couple’s baby. So many couples couldn’t have kids, she knew, but she was fertile and had always had smooth pregnancies with easy labors and no complications.

  When Andrea set her mind on something, she followed through. She went online for information and found a nice couple from Charlotte, North Carolina, who had posted the message: “Looking for our angel to carry our baby.” She set up an appointment to meet them, and by January she had begun in vitro fertilization, taking daily hormone shots so that the biological parents’ egg and sperm could be implanted. It didn’t work the first time, but Andrea became pregnant on the second try in February.

  Brandon was proud to tell people that his wife was a surrogate mother. And having another couple’s baby paid extremely well. For the first time the Floyds would be able to pay their bills—including the one for Brandon’s truck—and get out of debt. They might even use some of the money as a down payment on a house. Brandon was making more money now that he was in Delta, and they could afford something better than the double-wide manufactured home they had in Cameron, a country town northwest of Fort Bragg. Andrea was happy there, but with three kids they were growing out of it. And Brandon wanted a big home. It would be nice, Andrea thought, to have enough land to ride horses and breed Labrador retrievers. Brandon had a passion for Labs. The couple kept four in their backyard, and he often worked on retrieving with his two favorites, Zoë and Ace.

  For her part, having the babies and helping a family had given Andrea a sense of satisfaction she hadn’t felt in a long time. After a year that had centered on her pregnancy, the babies were gone, but somehow she didn’t want the feeling to disappear with them.

  As Brandon got into the Chevy van, Andrea hopped into her husband’s truck and drove away without any fanfare. She needed to get the oil changed, then pick up Harlee. It was Wednesday, and normally the Floyds would be attending services, but they were now having trouble finding a place of worship they liked. When Andrea became a surrogate mother, her pastor hadn’t approved—though it had been his sermon that inspired her. The Floyds had ended up leaving their church over it and were looking for a new one where they felt comfortable.

  Andrea remembered the flyer a pastor’s wife had given her in October. A very pregnant Joanne Strickland, about to give birth to her fifth child, knocked on the Floyds’ door one afternoon and found herself belly to belly with Andrea Floyd, who was extremely pregnant herself. Joanne handed Andrea a flyer about Emanuel Baptist, the new church her husband had just started in a storefront in Johnsonville, a rural community outside Cameron. Andrea still had the flyer. Maybe after things settled down they would try it out. It would be a nice way to start off the new year.

  Andrea was trying to get back in shape, too. She had gained a lot of weight with the twins, and Brandon hated that. He didn’t want a fat wife, he was constantly telling her. Andrea was always on one diet or another. She couldn’t help it if Brandon preferred petite women. At five foot seven, Andrea had the body of an athlete. At least she was strong and powerful.

  Back at Marlington High School in Alliance, Ohio, she’d loved to compete in track. She’d spring over the hurdles and run flat out, her long blond ponytail trailing behind her, until she collapsed in a heap beyond the finish line. She had given it every last bit she had, and her track records from those days still held up.

  During their seven-year marriage, she and Brandon had trained together and competed in biathlons and triathlons. Brandon had even bought her a fifteen-hundred-dollar bike.

  She didn’t mind working out, but she didn’t like to primp. Her appearance was casual. She wore her hair long, parted on the side. If she was going out, she’d just put on a bit of mascara and blush. She was most comfortable in sweats or khakis, but that was nothing new. As a kid she’d slide into her muddy boots and go out to the barn, her favorite place, to be with her goats.

  In contrast Brandon was meticulous about his appearance. He plucked his eyebrows and shaved his body hair to show off his muscle definition. Whenever Andrea caught him inspecting his body in the mirror, she wanted to hit him over the head with a frying pan. She couldn’t stop him from examining his physique, even if he sometimes had a skewed version of what he looked like. Once when friends were over for a summer cookout, Brandon, wearing sixty-dollar running shorts, had expressed disgust at the sight of himself shirtless.

  “Look how fat I am,” he said, visibly upset. “I’m fat around the waist. Can you believe these love handles? That’s it. No more beer.” His friends were incredulous. The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.

  At 181 pounds, Brandon was slim and rock hard, like a cyclist. The average guy in his Delta Force unit could bench press 300 pounds and run two miles in twelve minutes; he ranked in the top three-to-five men in his squadron when it came to physical endurance. The intensity he applied to his looks was typical of everything he did. His whole group had a similar drive. Their workday was like a tough-man competition. If someone bragged he had just completed the obstacle course in nine minutes, it became a challenge to beat that time.

  Brandon had been with the unit for about a year, and like his teammates he wanted to be the best shooter, parachutist, driver, all-around athlete—the best at everything. Excelling at a task was the operator’s reward. Brand
on took pride in knowing he could keep up with his peers day in and day out. Promotion was another powerful reward. Leadership in the unit was proof of a high level of performance, and it was what Brandon worked hard for.

  Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that he was always nagging at Andrea. She didn’t care if the house was messy and her kids got dirty from playing and stayed that way, but Brandon couldn’t tolerate it. Her husband was adamant about having things just so. The house in Heritage Village, the neighborhood where they lived, had to be spotless. Previous renters hadn’t taken care of the home, which the Floyds owned, and now they spent a lot of time working on the carpet and walls.

  The thirteen-hundred-square-foot house was covered in white vinyl siding, and it sat on a hill. There was a driveway but no garage, three bedrooms but no dining room. The family ate their meals at a round kitchenette set in the kitchen. The two boys shared a room with bunk beds. Harlee had her own room, with wallpaper and a bedspread that reflected her love of horses.

  The decorating in the rest of the house was eclectic. Near the leather couch in the living room Andrea kept three antique suitcases stacked on each other from largest to smallest. Brandon hated them. He preferred his Army and sports awards, including pictures of himself running in triathlons, which were on the wall in the living room. He kept his trophies on the bedroom dresser. The only sporting item of Andrea’s on display was the bike she hung like pop art on her bedroom wall. People always commented on it, since it was the first thing anyone noticed on entering the room.

  “We bike a lot,” Andrea would always explain.

  The den had two recliners and a large entertainment center. The Floyds also had a top-of-the-line computerized washer and dryer. The washer alone cost fourteen hundred dollars. Andrea hadn’t wanted to spend that kind of money, but Brandon wanted only the best.

  A small deck overlooked the backyard—three-quarters of an acre of land—which had a shed, the dog kennels, a trampoline, and a wooden jungle gym and swing set. It was a godsend. Andrea could just look out the window, if she was babysitting, and keep an eye on everyone’s kids. Brandon didn’t care for a lot of kids from the neighborhood coming over, though. He didn’t want the equipment ruined.