Amie Clark
Destination: Military Wife
I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell my children that, they just about throw up.
Barbara Bush
When I was in college, my roommate found an address in a magazine where you could send your name and receive the names and addresses of single soldiers who were looking for pen pals. Amy sent in her name, and it wasn’t long before her mailbox was crammed with letters from soldiers all over the world. She did her best to reply to each letter she received. One of the soldiers, J. D., was from Rhode Island, just a few miles from where we went to school. He was coming home on leave and wanted to meet her. Amy was nervous, but they hit it off. So well, in fact, that after that weekend, she stopped corresponding with all the other soldiers and focused only on writing to J. D.
A few months after they met, J. D. was deployed to Saudi Arabia in support of Desert Storm. They continued being pen pals for the nine months he was gone. Through their many letters, Amy and J. D. bonded, and their relationship bloomed and deeepened.
The summer J. D. returned home from the Gulf War, Amy and I took a road trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to see him. I was not interested in meeting a soldier, though Amy and J. D. had other plans: they had arranged to set me up with his roommate. Knowing I would protest, they kept it a secret from me until the day before we arrived. That’s when J. D.’s roommate had to return home for a death in the family, completely foiling their secret plan. J. D. wanted to find someone else to fill in at the last minute. He told Amy about another squad leader in his platoon, Mitch. Mitch was from Tennessee and wore cowboy boots and liked to sing country music.
Amy leaked this information to me on our way to Fort Bragg. I was understandably upset. First of all, I was embarrassed that they felt they had to fix me up on a blind date. I realized they were doing it so I wouldn’t be the third wheel, but it still offended me. Second of all, I am 100 percent Yankee, born in Boston, and I had lived in New England my entire life up until that point. The thought of a “redneck” from Tennessee was not only unappealing, but honestly, quite horrifying. How would I ever relate to a guy who wore cowboy boots and listened to country music? Irritated with my friend despite her good intentions, I told her they could tell Mitch from Tennessee that I weighed five hundred pounds and had unsightly facial hair. They got the point and stopped their scheming.
Amy continued to tease me about “Mitch from Tennessee” for the rest of the drive, and it became a joke to us. When we arrived in Fayetteville, my intentions were to collapse in the hotel room for the remainder of the weekend, only leaving to use the pool. When J. D. showed up at the room twenty minutes after we arrived, they talked me into taking a ride to Fort Bragg for a “quick tour.” The last thing I wanted to do was go for a ride, but Amy’s eyes pleaded with me to go.
We saw the sign that welcomed us to Fort Bragg, and our surroundings were immediately transformed. I had never been on an army post before. There were soldiers everywhere. It was intimidating, exciting and interesting. When J. D. pulled into a parking lot and motioned for us to follow him into a building, I glared at Amy. I was haggard and harried from our long journey. “I’m not going anywhere,” was what I tried to say. But I knew Amy needed my moral support.
The building we followed J. D. into was the barracks where he lived. As we got close to the door, a guy in army PTs ran past us. When he saw me, he stopped. He was cute and polite and had blood dripping down his forehead from what I later found out was a racquetball accident. He reached his hand out to welcome me to Fort Bragg. “Hi, I’m Mitch,” is what he said.
I looked at Amy, and we couldn’t contain our laughter. I suddenly wished I had taken a moment to freshen up before we left the hotel room, put on lipstick or at least comb my hair. I knew how bad I looked. Mitch left us to go upstairs, but, a few moments later, he was back, freshly showered and dressed, and following us to J. D.’s truck.
“So where do you want to go eat?” he asked.
I wish I could say we hit it off that night. But, in truth, we did not. I thought he was very attractive and had a great sense of humor. But Mitch was six years older than I, and I found him to be arrogant and overly assertive. Still, we had a fun evening.
When I returned to Rhode Island, I could not stop thinking about him. We started writing, and, after a few more visits to Fort Bragg, our relationship flourished. I graduated from college in May 1993, and I married Mitch from Tennessee in June. We even beat Amy and J. D. to the altar. They said their vows in September of the same year.
As I write this, the year is 2003, and Mitch and I have been happily married for ten years. I know it wasn’t luck that led me on that fateful trip to Fort Bragg twelve years ago. It was destiny. We have two beautiful daughters, and Mitch is now a captain with a promising military career ahead of him. He is deployed to the Middle East once again, but this time as a husband and father, rather than a single soldier.
Over the years, I have met many military wives with stories like mine. Nowhere will you find a more diverse group of people than on an army post. We have created a true melting pot in our neighborhoods. I have neighbors from across the globe—from places like Honduras, Korea, Africa, Germany, Vietnam and Croatia. I know wives who met their husbands in bus stations, in airports, in the town squares of foreign countries. There are language barriers, but no barriers stand between our love for our husbands, or the unique friendships we have formed with one another. In the past ten years, a new world has opened up to me. I have been shown that the only race is the human race. I have experienced suffering, and, as a result, I have seen the true strength of the human spirit and the power of support and friendship. There are thousands of military wives, and each one of us has a story to tell about how we got here.
The next time you meet a military wife, take a minute to ask her, “So how did you meet your husband?” It might renew your faith that God has a plan for us all.
Bethany Watkins
Newfound Heroes
No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.
Althea Gibson
In September 2003 my husband Bill left for Iraq. This deployment was to be different: he was heading to a war zone where our soldiers were being killed and injured. I tried to calm us all by telling the children and myself that he would be okay. He is an excellent soldier and well trained. He was part of a well-trained unit with a good command group. He would be fine. The children were scared, they missed him terribly, but we were managing.
On April 14, 2004, that all changed. The telephone rang, and I heard Bill’s voice. He was asking me what I was doing, as if it was any other normal call he had made. Instantly, I could hear in his voice that something was wrong, and asked him if he was okay. He told me that he had been shot, but that everything would be all right. I felt my stomach drop and my blood run cold, one of my worst fears becoming a reality. He had been hit in the left side, the bullet exiting the right side. When he called, he had just arrived at a Baghdad hospital and been stabilized. Some wonderful individual had given him a satellite phone to call his wife. He was able to talk for a few precious moments and then had to go. He was being flown out to Landstuhl Hospital in Germany.
As I hung up the phone, a deep sense of panic set in. I had so many questions that I had not thought to ask while he was on the phone; I didn’t know when I would hear from him again and didn’t know what to do. I have never felt so helpless in my life. I wanted to be by his side; however, that was not possible. The waiting began.
The next day, there was still no word from him. After an hour of inquiries, transfers and wrong rooms, I was finally connected to his room in Germany. He was doing well, in a lot of pain, but alive. The bullet had missed all major organs. There were shattered bones along the spinal cord, broken ribs and fragments throughout his lower back. It was a bad injury, but he was still miraculously able to walk. At that moment, I realized how blessed we were, how miraculous it was that he was able
to talk to me at all on the phone.
He arrived home on April 21. The doctors told us that this was going to be a very long recovery, but that they were optimistic he would make a full recovery. They also told us how incredibly lucky we were that he was in this condition. The fact that the bullet missed any vital organs was an absolute miracle, and we counted ourselves extremely lucky.
My husband has always been a hero to me, but even more so now—he came home to me. I also found a new set of heroes that day: the soldiers who fought beside him, saving his life. The soldier who lost his own life in that battle. The others who were wounded beside him. The wonderful man who pulled my husband to safety amidst a barrage of bullets. The medic who worked on him, keeping him alive until help could arrive. And the medical personnel who evacuated him and kept him alive until he could be treated. All these people were heroes to me before, in spirit; however, after this day, they became so in reality. I will never meet them all, will never know most of the men who helped to save his life, but they are my heroes all the same.
Carol Howard
The Angel at the Olive Garden
We differ from others only in what we do and don’t do, not in what we are.
Anthony DeMello
My husband was deployed in February 2003 to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. One Friday night after he had been gone for several months, my son and I joined my father for dinner at the Olive Garden. My son, who is a year old, is quite the entertainer, and he began engaging the waitress as soon as she came over to the table. After speaking with him for a while, she told me that he looked just like his dad. She assumed my father was my son’s father. I explained that his dad was in Iraq and that the man at the table was his grandfather. She told me that she would keep my husband and me in her prayers.
After a while, our dinner was served. We were enjoying ourselves at the table when a man walked up to the table and said, “Did I hear you say that your husband was in Iraq?”
I replied, “Yes, he is.”
He asked me if my husband was in the military, and I once again replied in the affirmative. The man then handed me a hundred-dollar bill, telling me to do him a favor and have dinner on him and buy my son something with whatever was left over. My eyes welled up with tears, and the man just walked away. I asked my father to follow him and get his name so that I could thank him. My dad went outside and followed the man to his car and asked for his name, but this lovely stranger refused to give my father any information. All he would say was that it made him sad to see a young mother and her son out while her husband was fighting a war.
Diane L. Flowers
You Didn’t Tell Me
You told me about the long shifts, the days and nights.
You told me about the commanders and their lovely wives. You told me about chain of command, and how I would live by it.
But you didn’t tell me how proud of you I would be.
You told me about the temporary duty and the many moves. You told me about overseas tours.
You told me about payday, and how we would stretch the dollar.
You didn’t tell me about the honor I would feel.
You told me about the wives’ clubs and family support.
You told me about Tricare.
You told me about base housing, and how no two are alike. You didn’t tell me that at the start of “God Bless the USA”
I would shed not one, but many tears.
You told me about how Christmas would be in Germany. You told me about the commissary and PX.
You told me we would need many sets of curtains.
You didn’t tell me how our children would look up to you, and want to be like Dad.
You told me about the hard times and how we would have many.
You told me about the stress of being a military spouse.
You told me sometimes I would be a single parent, and that in spirit you would be with me.
But you didn’t tell me that when I saw your uniform in the laundry, I would swell with respect.
You didn’t tell me how much of a part the military would play in our lives and how I would never want it any other way!
Donna Porter
Hooah
We ordinary people must forge our own beauty. We must set fire to the grayness of our labor with the art of our own lives.
Kenji Meyazawa
When I found out the news of Larry’s deployment, I quickly realized that I’d be in a new city alone, in a new job, in a new house, without many new friends, no children of our own and no family living close by. I had no idea who or what would surface to keep me going and support me through the time he’d be away. I just had to trust that they would appear.
And appear they did: in the form of a small group of seventh-grade mothers and the entire cast of two hundred students at Sacred Heart Middle School where I’m a teacher.
In September, just prior to his deployment, my husband visited my students. Captain Larry, as the students called him, gave an outstanding PowerPoint presentation (worthy of an A+). He showed them maps of Kosovo, teaching them about the peacekeeping mission he’d be a part of, and, of course, the many possible meanings of the word “Hooah!” They were mesmerized to see a soldier up close.
One cool October night at a parent/teacher conference, my seventh-grade student, John, asked me, “Mrs. Doss, when does your husband get home?”
“Sometime next September, I think, but we can’t be sure,” I replied.
When John’s mom overheard his question on that autumn evening, she asked, “Mrs. Doss, what do you mean? Where is your husband?”
Realizing that John hadn’t told his parents about Larry, I proceeded to tell her that he was deployed to Kosovo with the Iowa National Guard, and would be gone for the next year.
Her questions came like a flood: “Do you have children? Do you own a home? Do you have family nearby?
Do you have a pet?” Her outpouring of care and concern for me was heartwarming. But there was no way I could have been prepared for what was to come.
A letter was sent home to the middle-school parents, stating that there would be an “Out of Uniform Day” for all students donating one dollar or more. In a private school, the students value these opportunities to sport their latest fashion purchases. That being said, I was expecting our two hundred students to raise about a hundred dollars or so.
You can imagine my surprise when those same two hundred students brought in about eight hundred dollars on the Out of Uniform Day. With a little help from the student council, the students and their mothers used a thousand dollars to purchase two-hour phone cards and prayer cards for each of the 180 soldiers in my husband’s unit.
The same group of mothers declared April 1 to be “Mrs. Doss’s Day.” My room was decorated for the likes of a military ball, and my corsage made me feel like the belle of
the ball. The patriotic stars and stripes spilled out into the hallway and dribbled on every other classroom door in the place. Matching decorations were carefully packed in the box headed for Kosovo so that my husband and his unit could decorate along with us. There was a huge banner that the students signed, sending their love, prayers, support and gratitude to the soldiers protecting their freedom and their safety.
There were so many other surprises for me throughout the year, including a Valentine’s Day gift, an Easter basket (signed “From the Easter Bunny,” of course), as well as two huge welcome-home baskets of goodies to use in celebrating my husband’s return. One student brought a bag of HERSHEY’S KISSES to comfort me while my husband was away, and another presented me with a stuffed dog that looked exactly like my own Boston terrier, Toby. She thought having a stuffed Toby at school would keep me from getting lonely. There were lots of questions about how I was doing, who was shoveling my driveway, how the house was holding up and an occasional “Hooah” when the kids thought it appropriate. It always made me laugh, no matter what I was trying to teach!
Before my husband’s deploym
ent, I envisioned “serving your country” as serving in the armed forces and a few other choice careers that also fit the bill. Now, I know that serving your country involves so much more.
When we help each other in times of need, when we volunteer our time and effort to make our schools and cities better places, we serve our country. When we become informed voters and concerned citizens, we serve our country. When we support the families and friends of deployed soldiers, we serve our country. Good deeds strengthen our communities, and, one by one, they build a strong nation. This is what “united we stand” is all about.
I hope and pray that my students learned a lot about reading and language arts from me this year. I trust they learned the true meaning of patriotism as well. Hooah!
Theresa Doss
8
AN OFFICER
AT THE
DOOR
What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
Helen Keller
His Name Was John
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
George Eliot
In the airline industry, there is no such thing as a routine day. Anything can happen. Today, it was a mechanical problem with the aircraft. Until a mechanic came on board, we were to remain in the airplane and wait for final word about our departure. Of course, the passengers were not happy about the news.
I was talking with the other flight attendants when I felt a tap on my shoulder. A young woman, perhaps twenty-five years old, was standing before me.
“May I talk to you?” she whispered quietly.
“Of course,” I said to her as I took her arm to sit with her in the empty seats in row one. The look in her eyes told me something was wrong.
Chicken Soup for the Military Wife's Soul Page 14
