thedrifter
06-14-07, 05:32 AM
War widow following her heart to Iraq
Peabody woman to be Army medic
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | June 14, 2007
PEABODY -- Melissa Garvin begged her husband, Eddie, not to go to Iraq. The 19-year-old Marine lance corporal had no choice. He went in September, only to return in a casket a month later, and Garvin, like so many war widows, spiraled into despair.
But their story does not end there. Two months after laying Eddie to rest, Garvin joined the Army, a twist that has dumbfounded her family, raised questions about military recruiting, and underscored the Iraq war's brutal emotional toll on American families.
The Garvins had planned a lavish celebration of their marriage for this weekend on Revere Beach. Instead, the petite, soft-spoken 20-year-old is preparing for war.
She has heard the questions about her sanity and stability. But Garvin says simply that her choice is, in the end, about love.
"It's something I really can't explain," said the soon-to-be com bat medic. "It's just something I want to do. Have to do."
Garvin ships out to boot camp next month, and could be in Iraq by January. It is her fairy tale interrupted.
"I met my prince when I was in second grade and we had an amazing life while we were together," Garvin said. "Whenever it is my time, I'll be reunited with my prince. So, my death won't be in vain."
Her family has confronted Army recruiters to demand they reject her, arguing she was too emotionally distraught to make a clearheaded decision.
"The Army said they can't not take her. She's an adult," said her sister, Nicole Rabideau , 27, of Tewksbury. "They have numbers they have to meet and they don't care who they take, as long as they make the quota."
Indeed, the Army has had recruitment problems. It announced this week that it had missed a May national recruiting goal by 400 soldiers, the first time in nearly two years the service has fallen short of a monthly target.
The Army would not comment on Garvin's case. But Army spokesman Douglas Smith said that adults determined by military screeners to be mentally competent can enlist for whatever reason they want.
"If she's 18 or older, she gets to make her own decisions in life," Smith said.
In an interview at her Peabody home, bought with widow benefits from the government, Garvin said the only way to begin to fathom her decision is to examine her life with Eddie.
The pair were in second-grade homeroom together and moved in the same circles in the Newland Street housing development in Malden, where they grew up.
"Everybody who met him he made laugh within the first five minutes. We were inseparable," she said. "We were going to move to California and open a bar and grill. . . . Some days I still think he's going to run through the door."
They had flirted for years, until 2005, when Eddie Garvin proclaimed his love in a letter he handed her just before he left for basic training.
"He wrote that he had always loved me. And I had always loved him," she said.
She began visiting him every weekend at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, soon quitting nursing school to live with him near the base. Shortly thereafter, they married at the City Hall in Jacksonville, N.C. She said he had joined the Marines primarily to earn money so they could move out West.
Just before he left for Iraq, she tried to talk him out of going, but he was determined. They planned a lavish Massachusetts wedding for this weekend, just after his seven-month tour was scheduled to end.
Before leaving, "He told me he was really, really nervous but it was his duty," she said.
An improvised explosive device killed Eddie Garvin and another Marine on Oct. 4 as they patrolled Iraq's chaotic Anbar Province. Shortly after his funeral, the young widow talked with the medic who last treated him.
"I want to do the same thing in Iraq," she said of her decision to become a combat medic. "I know I can't help or save everybody but even if it's one person, it would make everything worth it."
After she enlisted, her family immediately protested. Garvin's mother, Anna Rabideau , 45, of Malden, complained to Army recruiters.
"I told them that they're out of their minds. How can they accept her after losing her husband? They should have let her wait a year," she said. "They suggested they could not do that."
Rabideau is struggling to comprehend her daughter's decision.
"I think she wants to get away from everything, maybe," she said. "I can't understand it."
But with Garvin preparing to ship out in weeks, Rabideau believes little can be done to dissuade her.
"Honestly, I've been trying to totally ignore it, like it's not going to happen. I'll just deal with it as it comes," she said. "I'm praying to God she changes her mind. I honestly think her husband would never have wanted her to do this."
In May, Garvin attended a memorial ceremony in Washington, D.C., for fallen troops, joining other grieving families. She realized that only they would understand her decision.
"It's the only time that I felt I fit in," Garvin said. "Here, nobody knows what I'm going through."
She said she does not have a strong political opinion about the war. But she harbors no animosity toward Iraqis and sees the war overall as tragic.
" When people are dying, nobody wins," she said.
She realizes that being a medic does not protect her from threats. Iraq is a war without fronts. But she says she is not afraid.
"When your biggest fear comes true, which is what happened to my husband, nothing else makes you nervous," Garvin said.
In the months after Eddie's death, she organized a fund-raiser to send children to the Boy Scout camp in Barnstead, N.H., that he had attended in his youth. This weekend, instead of reciting their wedding vows, Garvin plans to work on the staff lounge named for Eddie Garvin at the camp.
She also has been running on a treadmill to prepare for boot camp, while working as a nursing assistant at a Peabody hospital.
She knows she is headed into a dangerous and unpredictable war. She knows that people question her sanity. She knows that nothing can bring her husband back. But Garvin said that others should not feel sympathy for her, because she believes that she has been blessed.
"People search their whole entire lifetime to find their true love, and some people never find it," she said. "At least I did. I had it the whole entire time that he was on this earth."
Ellie
Peabody woman to be Army medic
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | June 14, 2007
PEABODY -- Melissa Garvin begged her husband, Eddie, not to go to Iraq. The 19-year-old Marine lance corporal had no choice. He went in September, only to return in a casket a month later, and Garvin, like so many war widows, spiraled into despair.
But their story does not end there. Two months after laying Eddie to rest, Garvin joined the Army, a twist that has dumbfounded her family, raised questions about military recruiting, and underscored the Iraq war's brutal emotional toll on American families.
The Garvins had planned a lavish celebration of their marriage for this weekend on Revere Beach. Instead, the petite, soft-spoken 20-year-old is preparing for war.
She has heard the questions about her sanity and stability. But Garvin says simply that her choice is, in the end, about love.
"It's something I really can't explain," said the soon-to-be com bat medic. "It's just something I want to do. Have to do."
Garvin ships out to boot camp next month, and could be in Iraq by January. It is her fairy tale interrupted.
"I met my prince when I was in second grade and we had an amazing life while we were together," Garvin said. "Whenever it is my time, I'll be reunited with my prince. So, my death won't be in vain."
Her family has confronted Army recruiters to demand they reject her, arguing she was too emotionally distraught to make a clearheaded decision.
"The Army said they can't not take her. She's an adult," said her sister, Nicole Rabideau , 27, of Tewksbury. "They have numbers they have to meet and they don't care who they take, as long as they make the quota."
Indeed, the Army has had recruitment problems. It announced this week that it had missed a May national recruiting goal by 400 soldiers, the first time in nearly two years the service has fallen short of a monthly target.
The Army would not comment on Garvin's case. But Army spokesman Douglas Smith said that adults determined by military screeners to be mentally competent can enlist for whatever reason they want.
"If she's 18 or older, she gets to make her own decisions in life," Smith said.
In an interview at her Peabody home, bought with widow benefits from the government, Garvin said the only way to begin to fathom her decision is to examine her life with Eddie.
The pair were in second-grade homeroom together and moved in the same circles in the Newland Street housing development in Malden, where they grew up.
"Everybody who met him he made laugh within the first five minutes. We were inseparable," she said. "We were going to move to California and open a bar and grill. . . . Some days I still think he's going to run through the door."
They had flirted for years, until 2005, when Eddie Garvin proclaimed his love in a letter he handed her just before he left for basic training.
"He wrote that he had always loved me. And I had always loved him," she said.
She began visiting him every weekend at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, soon quitting nursing school to live with him near the base. Shortly thereafter, they married at the City Hall in Jacksonville, N.C. She said he had joined the Marines primarily to earn money so they could move out West.
Just before he left for Iraq, she tried to talk him out of going, but he was determined. They planned a lavish Massachusetts wedding for this weekend, just after his seven-month tour was scheduled to end.
Before leaving, "He told me he was really, really nervous but it was his duty," she said.
An improvised explosive device killed Eddie Garvin and another Marine on Oct. 4 as they patrolled Iraq's chaotic Anbar Province. Shortly after his funeral, the young widow talked with the medic who last treated him.
"I want to do the same thing in Iraq," she said of her decision to become a combat medic. "I know I can't help or save everybody but even if it's one person, it would make everything worth it."
After she enlisted, her family immediately protested. Garvin's mother, Anna Rabideau , 45, of Malden, complained to Army recruiters.
"I told them that they're out of their minds. How can they accept her after losing her husband? They should have let her wait a year," she said. "They suggested they could not do that."
Rabideau is struggling to comprehend her daughter's decision.
"I think she wants to get away from everything, maybe," she said. "I can't understand it."
But with Garvin preparing to ship out in weeks, Rabideau believes little can be done to dissuade her.
"Honestly, I've been trying to totally ignore it, like it's not going to happen. I'll just deal with it as it comes," she said. "I'm praying to God she changes her mind. I honestly think her husband would never have wanted her to do this."
In May, Garvin attended a memorial ceremony in Washington, D.C., for fallen troops, joining other grieving families. She realized that only they would understand her decision.
"It's the only time that I felt I fit in," Garvin said. "Here, nobody knows what I'm going through."
She said she does not have a strong political opinion about the war. But she harbors no animosity toward Iraqis and sees the war overall as tragic.
" When people are dying, nobody wins," she said.
She realizes that being a medic does not protect her from threats. Iraq is a war without fronts. But she says she is not afraid.
"When your biggest fear comes true, which is what happened to my husband, nothing else makes you nervous," Garvin said.
In the months after Eddie's death, she organized a fund-raiser to send children to the Boy Scout camp in Barnstead, N.H., that he had attended in his youth. This weekend, instead of reciting their wedding vows, Garvin plans to work on the staff lounge named for Eddie Garvin at the camp.
She also has been running on a treadmill to prepare for boot camp, while working as a nursing assistant at a Peabody hospital.
She knows she is headed into a dangerous and unpredictable war. She knows that people question her sanity. She knows that nothing can bring her husband back. But Garvin said that others should not feel sympathy for her, because she believes that she has been blessed.
"People search their whole entire lifetime to find their true love, and some people never find it," she said. "At least I did. I had it the whole entire time that he was on this earth."
Ellie