My doctor (to me): "I need to listen to your
heart."
Me (to myself): "I wonder if she can hear that it's
still broken..."
~April 15th, 2010
When Jon came home for two weeks of R&R over Christmas, 2006,
he casually mentioned an incident that had occurred around Thanksgiving during
an operation termed "Turki Bowl I." According to his account,
his unit was stretched so thin during a major offensive maneuver that every
available paratrooper was ordered out into the field to help. While he
and several other Soldiers were travelling back to base in an up-armored
Bradley, their fighting vehicle was hit by a road-side bomb. The vehicle
sustained severe damage on the side of impact, but all passengers - thankfully
- remained safe and sound. When he
produced a small piece of shrapnel he had recovered from the incident and asked
me to keep it for him (since he technically wasn't supposed to have it in the
first place), I stared at him in utter disbelief and asked how he could
possibly not have told me at the time it happened. I was hurt, angry even, at the fact that our conversation from the day of the incident had most likely
consisted of me asking, "what did you do today, babe?" and Jon responding
with, "oh, nothing, same old, same old." But that was Jon -
always trying to protect me from the worst case scenario. He hadn't even
told me about the "wish-list" he'd had to fill out before deploying
to Iraq with his personal preferences for type of service (military or
civilian?), type of casket (wood or metal?), names of pallbearers, and music to
be played if something should happen to him - I had to find out about it when
the brother of one of my close friends from Fort Bragg was killed and his fiancé,
through tears, described how Rhett had joked about the silly, wildly
inappropriate music he'd want played at his funeral. In the end, Jon's
family and I had to guess about most of his preferences since his unit couldn't
locate the papers in time for us to make some of the major decisions related to
the funeral arrangements. Luckily, Jon had spoken to his dad ahead of
time regarding his desire to be buried at Arlington...and ultimately, we
guessed correctly when it came to everything else.
I didn’t even know what IEDs were until the summer of 2005.
While I was attending officer training at Fort Lewis, WA, we received a
short, 20-minute class on the reporting procedures for calling in an Improvised
Explosive Device (IED) attack. It struck a strange chord with me since I
was unfamiliar with the device and it all seemed so foreign and theoretical in
nature at the time. During that same summer, Jon was sent on a
last-minute assignment to Iraq while I was still out in the field for two weeks
of tactical training. When I got back and tried to call his
cell phone, it went straight to voice mail, which was unusual for him - he always kept it on so I could get in touch with him.
I called my mom to find out if she knew where he might be, and she asked
if I was sitting down before breaking the news of his last-minute deployment.
When he returned home a few months later, Jon recounted the story of a time
he was en route to a meeting with his new boss, a Brigadier General, and
crossed a bridge that insurgents blew up with an IED just 10 to 15 minutes
after their convoy had passed. That was my first real introduction to the
device that would take my sweet husband's life on his second deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
After the initial shock and disbelief of Jon’s death first began
to wear off, I spent many nights tossing and turning in my anger over how the
events of that fateful day in April of 2007 had played out. Why had Jon
gotten in the first truck that day? It wasn't his truck
and, arguably, he didn't even have to be there on that particular mission in
that particular convoy. Why hadn't he reserved a seat for himself in
the last truck of the convoy with Lieutenant Booth instead of
jumping in the truck that everyone knows is statistically more likely to be
hit? They had discovered 17 IEDs along
the very same route he traveled that afternoon in the week prior to the
incident. I know it would have been nearly impossible to find a
deep-buried IED with no visible traces of its presence on the surface of the
road, but why couldn't our EOD teams with all their fancy technology and
equipment have done something more to prevent what happened? These are the questions that haunted
me, even after I filled in many of the missing puzzle pieces during the months that followed. I remember a conversation Jon and I had just a month
or so before his scheduled departure date about the nature of his job in Iraq -
as the S-4 (the supply, transportation and logistics officer), Jon felt that
his assignment could not have been safer in terms of the odds. He
admitted, however, that the S-4 from his unit's sister battalion might disagree
with that statement - this officer had reportedly been hit with an IED during
his most recent deployment and had spent considerable time in the hospital
recovering from his injuries. I never did find out if he ultimately
survived.
There are so many other "what ifs,” both from the time
leading up to and during the course of Jon’s deployment, with which I continue
to wrestle even now. When he returned stateside in April of
2005 after a year-long tour in Korea, Jon was initially promised his first
choice of duty assignment, which was Fort Campbell. What if he had been
assigned to Campbell instead of Fort Bragg?
Would any of this have happened? When we returned from our
honeymoon to Jamaica in June of 2006, we heard many rumors of the pending
deployment to Iraq being postponed until February of 2007 and, indeed when Jon
was promoted to Captain on July 1st, the commander of his unit confirmed that
this was in fact the case. What if Jon had gone to the Captain's Career
Course at Fort Knox as planned in September of 2006 instead of joining his unit
on the deployment that was suddenly reinstated just two weeks after the
announcement that it was to be postponed?
With the deployment back on schedule, Jon had only 10 short days to
prepare his unit’s equipment for immediate departure. As a result, he had almost no time for
himself to tend to personal matters, such as finalizing his will, before
ultimately boarding a plane for Iraq on July 31st, 2006.
During the
funeral services in New Hampshire, Patriot Guard riders from all over the
country descended upon Jon’s small hometown to pay tribute to my beloved
husband and shield our family from the Westboro Baptist Church protestors that showed
up to picket the event. The protestors
posted flyers on their website (see www.godhatesfags.com
, www.godhatesamerica.com, and www.hatemongers.com) that said, “thank
God for IEDs” and “we’ve turned America over to fags; they’re coming home in
body bags.” Clearly, these sick individuals
have never looked up the meaning of “hero” in a dictionary or else they might
have an inkling of a clue as to how one of these “blessed” IEDs literally tears
families apart. And don’t get me started
on their apparent confusion over the term “hypocrisy.” Anyone who disagrees with me on this point
is, of course, entitled to their own opinion, but it’s one of the few subjects to
which I can guarantee I’ll respond with some sort of uncharacteristically scathing
remark. After my own deployment to
Iraq from 2008 to 2009, my boss once mentioned off-handedly that he didn't
think Soldiers who got blown up should be awarded the Combat Action Badge since
they weren't technically engaged in enemy "combat." In
response, I said, "yeah, no kidding, Sir. You can't shoot back at
the enemy when they blow you up and kill you on impact."
Recently, on March 11th, 2012, I experienced a moment
of sudden shock. I realized, “oh my
God! I didn’t cry yesterday!” It’s a rare day I can make that statement…and
have it be true. Most days consist of me
replaying the mental image of that IED explosion over and over again in my
mind…and then turning to my dog, my only true, constant companion since Jon’s
death, and asking her if she can please live forever so that mommy doesn’t have
to lose her too. I overreact to the
stupidest and most illogical of things that just don’t matter – like when I
bawled over a speeding ticket – and I sit up late at night when I should really
be doing work and run through all the “what ifs” again for what feels like the
millionth time. Mostly, though, I just
long to feel my husband’s loving arms around me in the same way I sensed his
presence in the days immediately following his death. That IED may have destroyed his physical
presence and simultaneously broken my heart into tiny pieces, but it can’t take
away my memories and love for a man who, in my eyes, remains
indestructible. Come and see me in my
dreams, Jon, so that I might hold you once more and see your sweet face. I miss you.
I love you so much. Always &
forever…
