For about five weeks, my husband has been back on United States soil. I am overjoyed to have him back in the country. While I only get to see him on weekends currently, it is much better than months and months of nothing at all. And it's been a while since I've written as a result of all of the recent changes and chaos. I have a number of posts started, but none quite finished. Not yet.
With all that said, however, it is a particularly hard time of year with the two of us.
October 2004 began the sad and painful combat operations for the infantrymen of 1stBattalion 3rd Marines. It was the beginning of when things went south for the Marines, and by extension, their families.
My husband and I just had a conversation about the cluster-fuck that ensued when the combat operations for 1/3 got fully underway. I told him that this is a 10-month period of my life that I still have not gathered a fully-developed understanding of. It's still only a partially developed overview in my mind, with many gaps and missing pieces. Perhaps it was the fact that I was a mere 20-years-old when he left for this deployment (barely 20, at that), or perhaps it was the lack of information that was afforded to the families of the company, who knows...
Based on that statement to my love, it reminded me of the numerous town-hall meetings my friends (fellow 1/3 wives) and I attended at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) base chapel to, supposedly, update us on the deployment direction and operations. These were mostly just haphazard sessions in which we would ask GySgt. Florendo (our equivalent of the current Family Readiness Officer, but GySgt. Florendo came from 3rd Marine Regiment as the battalion level folks were, of course, in Iraq) a bunch of questions, that he could not answer.
In one town-hall meeting in particular, we were given forms in which we were directed to choose someone we felt would help make any notification of death easier, a friend to accompany the CACO and/or Chaplain Brown and Col. Patterson to our homes to tell us our husbands had been killed-in-action. At 20, how can one make a non-dramatic decision here? How can anyone make one? I sat there with Judy. Judy and Joleene were my routine party for such depressing and disappointing events. I tried to wrap my still-somewhat-teenager brain around this and the severity of such decisions. It was poignant. Having just completed another deployment with my husband serving in the war again, we had no such forms (likely indicating the subdued nature of the war) or monumental decisions to make.
As I sat there with Judy, looking over the form, I turned to Judy and asked "Judy, would you be my person?" Judy hugged me and said "Of course I would." This is indicative of the kind of friendship Judy and I had. I believe Joleene was there, too. But it may have been one of the nights she worked over at Hickam AFB or had class at Leeward Community College. I cannot remember for certain anymore.
So, asking yourself, how do you decide who of your close-friends to ask to be present during such an incredibly awful time? We didn't really know the nature of what we were going to be subject to, we didn't really know what was going to happen come November. But regardless of what was to come, what was current was terrifying enough and put the heaviness of the decision into perspective.
You visualize the scenario mentally; you've seen it in the movies.
Two alpha-clad Marines walk the steps to your front door and knock, you crumble upon eye-sight -- not having them say a word, because just seeing them is enough to let you know.
It is just like it is in the movies. I've seen it first hand.
On 26 January 2005, we lost 31 Marines in a CH53E Super Stallion helicopter crash. As circumstance would have it, I happened to be at the house of one of the wives who lost their Marine in crash. Sharon was friends with this wife, and I was friends with Sharon. After we received word that one of our helicopters had gone down enroute to Al Anbar, Sharon used her "connections" to find out who was among the casualties and found out one of her friends was amongst the new widows. I am not going to use her name, out of respect of her privacy and appreciation for the kind, strong, and enduring person she is. Fortunate for me, I found that my husband was not on board, but several of his friends were, including one of his closest friends during the deployment: LCpl. Darrell Schumann. This is a story for another day, though.
Sharon, under the guise of wanting to visit, had me drive her over to this wife's house to hang out. Sharon wanted me to stay with her for awhile, and Sharon had planned to stay the night at her friend's house, in an effort to be present with her when the CACO came in the morning. However, Sharon had forgotten her cell-phone charger and wanted me to run by her house in the morning and grab it to bring over to her. I said I would and got up early to run after it, hoping to beat the CACO to the wife's house, as I didn't know this girl particularly well (except for the plethora of wonderful things I had been told about her since arriving on island in late 2003) and I didn't think she wanted a virtual stranger there during her most personal and saddening moment in her short 22 years of age. Unfortunately, I didn't make it. I got there, walked up to the door and knocked. When the door opened, there were the two CACO in their alphas, tears abounding and my horror that I had interrupted such an intimate moment. I was heartbroken. I apologize profusely, wishing that Sharon had texted me to let me know that the CACO was there and not to come yet (she knew I was enroute to her place on base). The whole scene could've been something out of a WWII movie. The brokenhearted widow, the two CACO Marines and the infant baby on the living room floor, now without her father having never met him to begin with. It was a scene I will not soon forget, and it continues to resonate when I think back on that time. My heart continues to break for all of those young women. These women were portraits of strength and resilience.
So, while I am grateful that I have my husband still, I have not forgotten the sacrifice of those who lost. And I strive to learn more everyday about that period of my life and that of my husband's, I want to fill that nearly-year-long-absence of him with the knowledge and events that were really taking place. Understanding all of those events are what help me rationalize and make sense of the tragedy and suffering that continues on with the loss and terror of that time.
And I remember what happened during those harrowing months. I have not forgotten. I remember the sacrifice of those Marines, and I remember the sacrifice of their families. With the fifth anniversary of Phantom Fury's D-Day approaching quickly, learn about the battle, learn about the Marines, learn about the ones who loved those Marines and pay tribute to their willingness to serve -- so some of us do not have to. Regardless of which side of the war you are on, we can all appreciate that much.
In an email to the families of 1stBN, 3rdMAR from 15 September 2004, then 1stSgt Eriksson said the following:
I am proud to tell you all that in my 20yrs in the Marine Corps that these are the finest Marines that I have served with. They truly care about what they are doing, and why they are here.
Please continue to support them.
Thank you for your time,
FIRST SERGEANT R. E. ERIKSSON
31ST MEU, BLT 1ST BN 3D MARINES
