"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."

"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."

After we realized what was really going on, and where the Marines were really heading, it was hard to hide the fear -- from our husbands and each other. I remember reading a letter from him that documented their entrance into Iraq. Bear in mind, Iraq in 2004 was not remotely similar to present day Iraq. This is Iraq just after Operation Vigilant Resolve failed. For those unfamiliar, Vigilant Resolve was the preemptive effort made by coalition forces (including infantry Marines and Army) to stabilize the city of Fallujah after the American Blackwater contractors were brutally murdered and dismembered by an angry Fallujah-mob, and then strung from a bridge in the city. I say preemptive because the outcry from the American public seemed to have tied the hands of our government, we were not ready to go in when we did. We were not prepared. And that is ultimately why we failed. However, Fallujah had not seen the last of the infantry side of the United States Marines. A few months later and we called a rematch.

In this letter, Casey describes the eery feeling as their convoy crossed the border from Kuwait in Iraq. The orange-red glow and dusty horizon. He describes the ominous feeling their arrival has...and this is before anyone hears of Al-Fajr.

His first call home after entering Iraq was terrifying. The call quality was terrible, but better than when he was on the Essex (the Essex is a ship that is part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which 1st BN, 3rd MAR was the main composition of during 2004-2005). In the background, I could hear some god awful noises, noises I didn't recognize. I asked him what was going on, and he indicated they take incoming fire everyday. That was what I was hearing. The last time, it was really loud. The phones cut out. I knew he was fine, deep down, but hearing incoming fire as I am talking to the love of my life was incredibly terrifying.

"The connection was so bad, and I couldn't talk at all during most of the call. How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person at the other end shouts back 'what?'"
- JD Salinger

Despite how rough it was in the battle to begin with, there are always others who strive to make it worse for their peers. Because of the gossiping nature of...everyone, it was no secret to my love's comrades of our "issues." Much to my dismay, this seemed to prove fodder for certain immature ones. One Marine in particular really irritated me, going out of his way to be ridiculous to Casey and others (watching pornographic movies loudly in the hooch just to be obnoxious, etc.) and after their return, I gave this Marine the cold shoulder and did my very best to let him know what I thought of him. Ultimately, he apologized, several times, in drunken rhetoric and indicated he wished he had someone to write him and love him while he was suffering over there, in the way that Casey had with me. While it was vindication for myself (Casey is not the jealous or bitter type), it also made me painfully sad for Jonathan. I wondered how many others would've been better had they had love (even dysfunctional love) and someone who would do anything to get them home.

Going through old letters reminds me of so much. I just read a letter from Casey talking about one of the lance corporals in his platoon who he really liked back then. His name was Kaplan, and he suffered from anxiety like I do (mine is related to severe ADHD, which we didn't find out until a few years later, but anxiety is unfortunate in any case). Kaplan really helped Casey understand the frustrations and hardships associated with anxiety and how it can compound an already difficult situation. One day in November, out of the blue, Kaplan called me to chat. I forgot about the conversation completely, but now that I am reminded, he was such a great kid. I wonder how he's doing, post-Fallujah. A boy as nice as that is usually eaten alive by the Corps...

From Casey 20 November 2004 via USPS:
It is prayer time for the people over here. They pray five times a day over loud speakers at the mosques. It sounds really good when they sing. It is always really mellow and soothing. But the night of the attack, they were yelling and it sounded demonic. It was kind of scary. It was like world war III when we stormed through Fallujah. It was surely a once in a lifetime experience, and I am glad that it was a once lifetime kind of thing...

From Casey, 28 November 2004 via USPS:
I have to look at my watch to see what day of the week or month it is. All the days run together. I don't even know how long we have been out here. It's starting to come up on a month straight. We really have no word on when we are getting out of here. Only that it is soon. Hopefully. The days all run together, the only mental concept I have of time is whether the sun is up or down. I can't wait to come home. I just want to be with you.

"Be here for this moment. This is your life."

"Be here for this moment. This is your life."

We got married when I was barely nineteen. That factor alone was enough to cause strife in a marriage, and could have torn apart the most normal couple.

He left in July 2004. 1/3 was reserved for standard UDPs (unit deployment program) in the southeast Asian regions. If I remember right, this was a measure that followed World War II and the issues with Japan...or perhaps it followed Vietnam, I cannot remember for certain.

In any event, we were reassured numerous times that Iraq was not on the agenda for 1/3. Of course, there was scuttlebutt that led us to believe and talk of the possibility. Perhaps it was simply denial, perhaps we were only fooling ourselves. But when he left on that warm, late Hawaiian evening, I never imagined things would be as they were.

A few weeks before the deployment began, there was a briefing at the base chapel. This is where I first met Judy, my dearly beloved friend, who saved me from myself.

The day the men left, the command required the Marines of 1/3 to stay on base from around 1500 until they had to report to the commissary parking lot to prepare to board the buses to the hangar that would transport them to Okinawa (where they would then attach to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit). To make the most of our last few hours together, we went to Recon Beach and collected seashells (something we did quite frequently). We had one last meal at Taco Bell together and then we stood in the commissary parking lot, staring at the white buses, tear-filled faces of wives and children, and hugged as much as possible.

Neither him nor I really knew what was going to happen in the months ahead.
Just him leaving was enough to wreck me. I was entirely alone on an island. I was so young, and had only been on the island a handful of months. That entire time, I wrapped myself up in him and did not make friends. The only friend I had, moved just before the deployment. She was the one who picked me up from the airport after I moved to Hawaii, as 1/3 was on the Big Island for training at PTA (unexpectedly). My entire first year on the island was tumultuous, from arrival onward. Sarah was my very first friend, and is still such a positive influence on me, though we haven't seen each other in many years now. She was a dear friend to me while she was there, and she called and emailed often afterward. She was an example to me of what a Marine wife should be. She set the bar for me and helped guide me as I tried to acclimate to a completely foreign lifestyle. Without her, I would have been completely lost.

I remember when Sarah picked me up from the airport and took me to my apartment. It was small (small is probably an understatement, but we had a lot of really great times in that apartment and we loved living on Akumu Street), but cozy. However, Casey had to leave in such a hurry for PTA that he hadn't provided anything in the apartment. There wasn't even a towel to try off with, let alone a bed or silverware. It was completely depressing. Sarah took me to my new home and let me shower, then took me to the commissary and to our Jeep and got me going back home. She helped me think of all the things I needed at the apartment and I decided the next day that I would go after a sleeping apparatus. I spent that first night in Hawaii sleeping on the floor of our very empty apartment. However, had it not been for Sarah, I'd have felt so much more alone.

After Casey was rounded up for small pox and anthrax vaccines, no longer allowed to be around family, we were forced to leave. I collected myself and tried to restrain my tears, got into the Jeep and drove the few miles back to my apartment. I couldn't shake this overwhelming feeling of emptiness, it pulled at my chest, and I felt like I was having a mild heart-attack. I sat on the sofa in total silence for what seemed like an eternity, not crying, not moving, just staring. Trying to fathom the next seven months and how I was going to manage all alone. I took a shower and watched television until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, hoping he would call me as soon as possible.

Our relationship was struggling even then, both of us were immature and not entirely upfront about elements of our pasts. In retrospect, of course, we both see how silly our behavior and reactions were. But, as a jealous and ignorant young woman, suffice to say I did not handle anything very well and began to have trust issues early on. My emotional instability, as a depressed now 20-year-old and, concurrently, a lonely wife with marital problems was hard to bear. It got worse before it got better and set the precedent for how others would treat me and my husband throughout the deployment. Everyone gets into others' personal affairs, even if they are uninvited and unwelcome. And some of those that were invited deeply violated my trust and confidence in people, ultimately betraying me in an especially desperate time.

The first month of this deployment was too much to bear.
However, after those few weeks were over, things seemed to improve. Much to my shock.
And a family day invited some much needed companionship, after a long several weeks of loneliness. Things had gotten so much better. I missed him immensely, but I was becoming more and more stable with how things were rolling. We still had no idea what was in store for us. When I left the island to go to my family's for a visit, we still didn't know what was coming just around the corner.

We should have known, Operation Vigilant Resolve failed. We should have known that no infantry battalion would go to waste. And maybe some did know.
None of us were adequately prepared, though, for when we did enter the fray.

From Casey, 2 November 2004 0358 HST, five days before D-Day:
I will come home to you, Crystal, you are who I am coming home to. You are my motivation over here, the thought of you is what keeps me sane. The thought of being in your arms and you holding me tightly and me loving you back puts a smile on my face even in the worst of conditions.

"Be honest, even when it hurts."

"Be honest, even when it hurts."

I have been married to a Marine for many years now.
As we go through this most recent deployment together, it reminds me of years past and the one that changed everything. This journal is dedicated to that time and to what happened during those unforgettable and life-altering months. Those are the months that no one will ever forget, and those are the months that defined the life we live afterward, for those involved in the battle and those left behind.

This is from my point-of-view, as one who has been left behind too many times. Days will bounce back and forth, as my thoughts and memories surface, but ultimately, you will see a unique and honest portrayal of what Al-Fajr/Phantom Fury and the months that preceded and followed were like for this wife who happened to be married to a Lava Dog with 1st Battalion 3rd Marine.

Some will say, and likely have said, "move on, it's been four years." Although insensitive, it just evidences the lack of stories told by our families and Marines. The pain felt does not go away, time just erases the memories. Though I hurt from what we went through and the toll it took on us, I must acknowledge that there are many others who had it so much worse throughout this deployment (while outside of 1/3 others were hurt as well, I am limiting my scope to fellow-families-of-Lava-Dogs). Many wonderful women, who were some of the kindest, sweetest, most loving people I have ever been blessed to know lost their husbands. The Peralta family lost their son (whose memory has been desecrated and abused by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his failure to acknowledge that science cannot explain everything -- we'll touch on that again at another time). We lost 51 Marines during this deployment, 31 in a single day, in a single incident. There are many, many others who feel deeper and harder pain than I. I hope to lend them a voice by expressing the pain of my experience, and acknowledging, honoring, and appreciating the theirs. The families who lost their Marines are the ones most impacted. I think about them every single day. Though it is inconceivable to most, because of the intensity of the fighting and severity of the battle on every level, each wife in that battalion questioned whether her husband was alive or not at least once during our ten-month ordeal.

It is important that these feelings and stories are shared, that this love is not left unaccounted, and that these memories do not deteriorate, as time would like to have it.