thedrifter
03-04-07, 07:20 AM
A story of survival
Posted On: Sunday, March 04, 2007
By Amanda Kim Stairrett
Killeen Daily Herald
Charlotte thought Clarence was joking when he talked about marrying her.
They were talking on the phone one day when the then-Marine spelled it out, "Mike. Alpha. Romeo. Romeo. Yankee. Mike. Echo."
Marry me.
"Oh my, you are serious," Charlotte recalled saying.
Charlotte and Clarence Spencer met in April 2005 after she moved to Fort Worth, his hometown. He was a Marine and preparing for his third deployment, and she would enlist in the Army less than a year later.
He joined the Army in February 2006, and the two requested they be stationed at Fort Hood.
They wed on Sept. 1, a few weeks before Clarence left for Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division's Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The morning he was to deploy, Charlotte stood by his formation as the soldiers prepared to load the buses that would take them to the airport.
He mouthed, "I love you."
She mouthed back, "I love you, too."
Soon after the 24-year-old deployed, Charlotte moved into an apartment they would share with their children, Chania, 5, and JaMarco, 6, when he returned from a year in Iraq.
She would have deployed with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment late this year as Clarence was returning.
Though he hadn't seen the new apartment yet, he was excited and sent Charlotte a postcard with a smiling puppy and a heart on the front. He wanted to be the first person to send his wife a piece of mail at the address they would call home: a second-floor, two-bedroom apartment in Killeen.
That and other letters and cards the infantryman sent in the following months were the closest he would get to the apartment until four black storage lockers filled with his belongings were delivered there Feb. 23.
Charlotte was shopping at Wal-Mart in early February when her neighbor called. Charlotte should come home immediately because two soldiers in crisp, olive-green uniforms were standing at her door.
At the apartment, with a few pieces of furniture and walls that were still bare, the 21-year-old learned her husband had been killed. The Army said the private died Feb. 4 in Balad, Iraq, a city 50 miles north of Baghdad, after "his unit came in contact with the enemy using small-arms fire."
"No, I just talked to him last night," she recalled saying to the soldiers.
Clarence's last words to his wife were, "I love you. I'll see you when I get back."
Charlotte didn't believe it until she called her platoon sergeant and he confirmed the news. It was still hard to believe he was gone, even when she went to the airport and watched his casket being unloaded from the plane. She reacted by falling to the ground.
The loss hasn't fully sunk in, Charlotte said during an interview Feb. 23. She had gotten back that week from Fort Worth, where Clarence was buried with military honors. His former high school junior ROTC instructor and football coach both spoke at the funeral. His former teammates and Marines were there, too, including his best friend, who lost a leg while deployed with the Corps.
Clarence was a talented football player and athlete, something his company commander commented on during a memorial service Feb. 9 in Baqubah, Iraq, at Forward Operating Base Warhorse.
Clarence was the kind of guy who everyone wanted on their team, said Capt. Peter Chapman.
"He had natural physical ability and athletic talent, but that wasn't all – Spence had the spirit of a winner.
"Whatever sport we were playing, Spence had the intense drive to compete and win," he continued. "His attitude was infectious. He made people more positive and motivated, not just by being on the same team, but by being on the same field.
"Like athletics, he was the soldier that everyone wanted to his side when things were rough, because you knew you would win with Spence," he added.
Charlotte has honored her husband's memory with a tattoo featuring his Dunbar High School football number, 28, on her left arm. The black-and-white tattoo sits just below her shirtsleeve – a reminder of the man she said she was proud to be married to.
There were times before Clarence died when he was on long missions off the forward operating base and wasn't able to call. Still, he always found a way as soon as he could, reassuring Charlotte that he loved and missed her.
Clarence is on a long mission and will call when he has time, Charlotte tells herself. She still checks her computer for e-mails and waits for her cell phone to ring.
After the storage lockers arrived home in late February, Charlotte found letters and cards she had sent him, some creased so deeply they must have been read over and over again. He would sometimes take her letters and cards with him on a mission, she said, because he didn't have a chance to read them on the base.
It's weird to see the letters and cards again so soon, she said.
She also found a blank, unmailed Valentine's Day card; a teddy bear she had given him the day he left, which still had "his smell" and several letters of support from junior high school students. She couldn't find a return address and doesn't' know where the letters were sent from. She wished she knew where so she could let the kids know about Clarence.
Also in the boxes, Charlotte found a thin, spiral-bound notebook filled with Clarence's handwriting. The soldier was on his fourth tour to Iraq – spending three of those as a Marine – and always kept journals during his deployments, his wife said. He titled each of his deployments and this one was "No Worries, no stress."
Charlotte read one of the entries Clarence wrote after first arriving in Kuwait.
"I'm laying in bed for the first time without my wife by my side,'" he wrote.
She read another passage.
"If this is true love, this is some good stuff.'"
Charlotte doesn't think Clarence ever intended for her to see his notebook, but now she reads these passages every morning and every night. It helps her sleep.
Now she is just trying to make the time pass. She takes the kids to school and is planning a spring break trip with them to Six Flags or Sea World.
She planned a trip to Clarence's gravesite that weekend for some "me time." Charlotte still hasn't decided on a future without her husband. She had plans on attending college after the Army, something Clarence always encouraged her to do.
He told her she was so smart that he would be willing to stay in the Army while she studied juvenile criminal justice and music.
If she goes to school, she will buy a house in the Fort Worth area so she and the kids can visit him whenever they want.
Charlotte went through a box of letters Clarence sent her and thought about the plans he had after returning home to "our house." She looked to the counter at a display of cards, awards, including four Purple Hearts, and the cased American flag that once covered her husband's coffin.
"It's like now ... " her voice trailed off. "It's just going to be lonely."
"That was my best friend."
She has moments every day where she realizes that "this is really going on." She will cry. She will stop crying. Clarence hated when Charlotte cried.
"OK, I'm not going to cry," she tells Clarence now. "You're looking down on me, and I'm not going to cry."
Charlotte said marrying Clarence made her hold her head up high – he made her feel "extra pretty."
They had plans. Together, they were Pinky and the Brain, and they were cocky about it.
"Pinky and the Brain, conquering the world," she said.
Contact Amanda Kim Stairrett at astair@kdhnews.com or call (254) 501-7547
Spc. Ryan Stroud, of 1st Cavalry Division public affairs, contributed to this story.
Ellie
Posted On: Sunday, March 04, 2007
By Amanda Kim Stairrett
Killeen Daily Herald
Charlotte thought Clarence was joking when he talked about marrying her.
They were talking on the phone one day when the then-Marine spelled it out, "Mike. Alpha. Romeo. Romeo. Yankee. Mike. Echo."
Marry me.
"Oh my, you are serious," Charlotte recalled saying.
Charlotte and Clarence Spencer met in April 2005 after she moved to Fort Worth, his hometown. He was a Marine and preparing for his third deployment, and she would enlist in the Army less than a year later.
He joined the Army in February 2006, and the two requested they be stationed at Fort Hood.
They wed on Sept. 1, a few weeks before Clarence left for Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division's Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The morning he was to deploy, Charlotte stood by his formation as the soldiers prepared to load the buses that would take them to the airport.
He mouthed, "I love you."
She mouthed back, "I love you, too."
Soon after the 24-year-old deployed, Charlotte moved into an apartment they would share with their children, Chania, 5, and JaMarco, 6, when he returned from a year in Iraq.
She would have deployed with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment late this year as Clarence was returning.
Though he hadn't seen the new apartment yet, he was excited and sent Charlotte a postcard with a smiling puppy and a heart on the front. He wanted to be the first person to send his wife a piece of mail at the address they would call home: a second-floor, two-bedroom apartment in Killeen.
That and other letters and cards the infantryman sent in the following months were the closest he would get to the apartment until four black storage lockers filled with his belongings were delivered there Feb. 23.
Charlotte was shopping at Wal-Mart in early February when her neighbor called. Charlotte should come home immediately because two soldiers in crisp, olive-green uniforms were standing at her door.
At the apartment, with a few pieces of furniture and walls that were still bare, the 21-year-old learned her husband had been killed. The Army said the private died Feb. 4 in Balad, Iraq, a city 50 miles north of Baghdad, after "his unit came in contact with the enemy using small-arms fire."
"No, I just talked to him last night," she recalled saying to the soldiers.
Clarence's last words to his wife were, "I love you. I'll see you when I get back."
Charlotte didn't believe it until she called her platoon sergeant and he confirmed the news. It was still hard to believe he was gone, even when she went to the airport and watched his casket being unloaded from the plane. She reacted by falling to the ground.
The loss hasn't fully sunk in, Charlotte said during an interview Feb. 23. She had gotten back that week from Fort Worth, where Clarence was buried with military honors. His former high school junior ROTC instructor and football coach both spoke at the funeral. His former teammates and Marines were there, too, including his best friend, who lost a leg while deployed with the Corps.
Clarence was a talented football player and athlete, something his company commander commented on during a memorial service Feb. 9 in Baqubah, Iraq, at Forward Operating Base Warhorse.
Clarence was the kind of guy who everyone wanted on their team, said Capt. Peter Chapman.
"He had natural physical ability and athletic talent, but that wasn't all – Spence had the spirit of a winner.
"Whatever sport we were playing, Spence had the intense drive to compete and win," he continued. "His attitude was infectious. He made people more positive and motivated, not just by being on the same team, but by being on the same field.
"Like athletics, he was the soldier that everyone wanted to his side when things were rough, because you knew you would win with Spence," he added.
Charlotte has honored her husband's memory with a tattoo featuring his Dunbar High School football number, 28, on her left arm. The black-and-white tattoo sits just below her shirtsleeve – a reminder of the man she said she was proud to be married to.
There were times before Clarence died when he was on long missions off the forward operating base and wasn't able to call. Still, he always found a way as soon as he could, reassuring Charlotte that he loved and missed her.
Clarence is on a long mission and will call when he has time, Charlotte tells herself. She still checks her computer for e-mails and waits for her cell phone to ring.
After the storage lockers arrived home in late February, Charlotte found letters and cards she had sent him, some creased so deeply they must have been read over and over again. He would sometimes take her letters and cards with him on a mission, she said, because he didn't have a chance to read them on the base.
It's weird to see the letters and cards again so soon, she said.
She also found a blank, unmailed Valentine's Day card; a teddy bear she had given him the day he left, which still had "his smell" and several letters of support from junior high school students. She couldn't find a return address and doesn't' know where the letters were sent from. She wished she knew where so she could let the kids know about Clarence.
Also in the boxes, Charlotte found a thin, spiral-bound notebook filled with Clarence's handwriting. The soldier was on his fourth tour to Iraq – spending three of those as a Marine – and always kept journals during his deployments, his wife said. He titled each of his deployments and this one was "No Worries, no stress."
Charlotte read one of the entries Clarence wrote after first arriving in Kuwait.
"I'm laying in bed for the first time without my wife by my side,'" he wrote.
She read another passage.
"If this is true love, this is some good stuff.'"
Charlotte doesn't think Clarence ever intended for her to see his notebook, but now she reads these passages every morning and every night. It helps her sleep.
Now she is just trying to make the time pass. She takes the kids to school and is planning a spring break trip with them to Six Flags or Sea World.
She planned a trip to Clarence's gravesite that weekend for some "me time." Charlotte still hasn't decided on a future without her husband. She had plans on attending college after the Army, something Clarence always encouraged her to do.
He told her she was so smart that he would be willing to stay in the Army while she studied juvenile criminal justice and music.
If she goes to school, she will buy a house in the Fort Worth area so she and the kids can visit him whenever they want.
Charlotte went through a box of letters Clarence sent her and thought about the plans he had after returning home to "our house." She looked to the counter at a display of cards, awards, including four Purple Hearts, and the cased American flag that once covered her husband's coffin.
"It's like now ... " her voice trailed off. "It's just going to be lonely."
"That was my best friend."
She has moments every day where she realizes that "this is really going on." She will cry. She will stop crying. Clarence hated when Charlotte cried.
"OK, I'm not going to cry," she tells Clarence now. "You're looking down on me, and I'm not going to cry."
Charlotte said marrying Clarence made her hold her head up high – he made her feel "extra pretty."
They had plans. Together, they were Pinky and the Brain, and they were cocky about it.
"Pinky and the Brain, conquering the world," she said.
Contact Amanda Kim Stairrett at astair@kdhnews.com or call (254) 501-7547
Spc. Ryan Stroud, of 1st Cavalry Division public affairs, contributed to this story.
Ellie