thedrifter
08-28-08, 12:26 PM
Combat Poet
Napavine Woman Writes Verse From the Front Lines of the War
Posted August 26, 10:42 am.
By Julie McDonald
The Chronicle
A 21-year-old Army soldier from Napavine finds comfort in an Iraqi war zone by sharing her thoughts and feelings in poetry.
Danielle Marie Wheeler, a specialist with the 4th Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division stationed at Kalsu, Iraq, tells what it’s like for a woman in a combat zone, outnumbered by the opposite sex 20 to 1.
“Females in Iraq are like finding a diamond in the rough. So if you were fat and ugly in the States, suddenly you’re hot,” Wheeler begins her poem, “The 15-Month Fling.”
Wheeler, who grew up in Medicine Bow, Wyo., is the granddaughter of Bob and Jean Wheeler of Napavine. The second of seven children born to Kevin and Laura Wheeler, she was schooled at home and obtained her high school equivalency at Laramie County Community College. A month later, in May 2006, she moved to Napavine to live with her grandparents.
Trained as a certified nursing assistant, Wheeler started looking into the Army to save money for college to earn a nursing degree.
“Joining the military was something I was always interested in,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I wanted to know what it was like from the inside.”
She joined the Army in July 2006, and left for Fort Jackson in South Carolina early the next month. She attended Advanced Individual Training in Fort Gordon, Georgia, to become a signal support systems specialist. She joined the 3rd Infantry Division April 4, 2007, and left for Kalsu, Iraq, with her signal unit in late October. As a member of the signal company, she helps provide phones and Internet for the forward operating base.
The titles of Danielle’s poems include “A Soldier’s Prayer,” “Trapped,” “Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Dreams,” and “Story of My Life.”
“The War Game” reads like an electronic battle on a video game or Wii, but the distinction between game and reality is apparent in lines like this: “When your buddy dies, eventually he’ll re-spawn. Out here they don’t come back, your buddy’s really gone.”
Wheeler started writing the poems after arriving in Iraq.
“When I was a civilian, I always wanted to know more about the trials, the hardships and the joys you experienced as a soldier,” she said. Eventually, she hopes to create a book of the poems to give people a better understanding of life in a war zone and to write about her fellow soldiers.
She also tries to illustrate the humanity of the soldiers, who she says are serving their country for a purpose greater than Iraq.
“A lot of the soldiers out here don’t support the war,” she wrote. “Anti-war groups march against the troops but what I want them to understand is we are people, just like the people you work with everyday. We have homes and families and needs just like everyone. ... Most of us joined the military for a better life for our families, to go to college. We’re just normal people trying to give the best life to all those we left behind.
“I think we’re doing a great job at teaching the Iraqis how to take care of their country once we’ve gone. As far as winning, I don’t think it’s a matter of winning or losing but a matter of teaching a people how to build better communities and better law enforcement.”
Wheeler said she doesn’t have strong opinions about the war.
“I try to keep an opened mind and I believe we really are helping these people,” she said. “I know we’re providing them with jobs, and food and medical care. I’m an incurable optimist so I try to find the good in every situation.”
Wheeler shares her poems with family members, friends, and her boyfriend.
“It’s hard to find someone to talk to sometimes because when I’m upset the last thing I want is to go and cry to some guy I work with all the time,” she wrote in her e-mail. He’ll “just think it’s PMS.”
She tries to be tough in the field, as she notes in one poem.
Not a Tear
“That’s not a tear; I’m not starting to cry.
I just got a bit of dust in my eye.
No, my eyes aren’t red and they’re not watery.
Maybe you shouldn’t try to calm me so softly.
It wasn’t tears that made your shoulder wet.
It’s getting really hot; that water is sweat.
My nose isn’t running. I’m not trembling.
That’s not why I’m shaking and sniffling.
OK, maybe I’m a little unhappy.
I just feel guilty when I look at you sadly.
I try telling myself I’m as tough as a guy.
That’s why I hate to be seen when I cry.
If you want to do something, just hold me close.
Wrap me up tight and don’t let me go.
No, I won’t get attached while we’re rocking in place.
I’m not melting at your touch, I just feel really safe.
I’m not falling in love wrapped up in your arms,
While I’m falling asleep to the beat of your heart.
Feel a little vulnerable now that you’ve seen me cry.
But at the same time, I know it’s all right.
As a woman in the military, the brown-eyed Wheeler, who stands 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 153 pounds, finds herself the object of a lot of flirting.
Some of the inconveniences she encounters in Iraq wouldn’t occur to most people -- difficulty finding soap, deodorant “that smells girlie” and other normal female hygiene products.
“That gets a little annoying after 10 months or so,” she said.
Sometimes life can become overwhelming, as it was for a female military police soldier who committed suicide. Wheeler wrote about the death in a poem called “Sad Soldier.” It includes this line: “We get to fly out on a plane or Black Hawks. But she’s going home in a wooden box.”
She also writes about missing home, family and friends. Although they enjoy volleyball, basketball, softball, movies and music nights, everyone still talks about going home and seeing family members.
“Mail is the best thing in the world,” Wheeler said. “It means everything to a soldier to get a letter or a box, most of the time from someone they don’t know, that is filled with thank yous and little things from home that are not available out here.”
It’s tough being away from home, especially when family members face difficulties.
“Being so far away makes you feel a little helpless because you feel like you can’t do anything but be there for emotional support,” Wheeler said.
After leaving home at 17, Wheeler was befriended by a woman named Wendy Hall, who has three children and lives in Rawlins, Wyo. She wrote a poem for them.
Dear Little Ones
I can’t tell you how much I love you.
I wish you’d understand the things that I do.
I miss you so much, if you only knew.
And, the way that it sounds, you miss me too.
You and your mommy are my whole world,
All of you cute, little, beautiful girls.
I wish I were with you. I want to come back.
Instead, I’m stuck in Iraq.
I look at your pictures again and again.
I remember what it was to hold you back then.
Reading you the same stories over and over,
I wonder if you’ll remember that when you’re older.
I saw you cry when I left and it broke my heart.
I cried too, knowing we’d be apart.
I didn’t leave because I don’t love you.
I’m over here fighting so you won’t have to.
For now, hold tight to your dad and your mom.
Ask them to hold you while your big sister’s gone.
We don’t know what will happen. Time someday may tell.
But until then, I love you. Your big sister, Danielle.
She also wrote about the people of Iraq, especially the women. She works with some Iraqi nationals, who react differently to women.
“Some will treat you like a man; others will look past you instead of at you, kinda nudge you aside when you’re working with them or talk to your male buddy instead of you.”
She wrote a poem about the life of an Iraqi woman.
Behind the Veil
If you asked who the strongest woman would be, I’d say an Iraqi woman.
They’re the strongest I’ve seen.
Here a woman can get beat up just for not being pretty enough.
I guess it all starts off when they are daughters.
Sold off to be married to other men by their fathers.
That poor woman, married to someone she doesn’t know,
Told she’d have his children and make his home.
If her husband is poor without a camel or a cow,
She’ll be outside in the sun pulling the plow.
When her husband comes home and his dinner is burned,
She’ll get a black eye she believes she earned.
She could try to dodge, get away from the attack.
She knows it’d be worse if she tried to fight back.
You think it doesn’t get worse than this?
All this is done in front of the kids.
When she starts to show her age he can beat her to death,
Find someone younger, prettier and marry again.
No matter what happens, she’s always wrong.
That’s not everything; I could go on and on.
If I were them, I’d wear a veil too.
No better way of hiding a bruise.
Even though she’s halfway around the world, Danielle Wheeler remains in the thoughts of her family and friends at home.
“I worry about her. I pray a lot about it,” said her grandfather, Bob Wheeler, who moved to Napavine in 2000 after living in Yakima from 1982, where he worked as an accountant until retiring in 1997. They wanted to live closer to their daughter and her husband, Kelly and Larry Smathers of Chehalis, and their two children, Ty and Casie.
They also live closer to Danielle’s older brother, Sean, who lives in Centralia and serves in an Air National Guard communications unit and works for a contractor at McChord Air Force Base. He and his wife, Brandy, have a daughter, Trinity.
As for Danielle, she’s focusing on her work, her friends, her family, and her writing.
“I try to take things one day at a time and focus on tomorrow instead of the whole of the deployment.”
Home
The thought of home feels like a dream. It seems it’s the place farthest away from me.
Way out here with the heat and the dust, behind cement walls so insurgents won’t hurt us.
Everyone has an image of home in his or her mind -- brothers, sisters and family of some kind.
And then there’s the soldier whose wife just had a baby. Away for a year, thinking of their child daily.
Back home, our friends are taking classes trying to stay ahead. That could have been us, we’re fighting instead.
But we never complain; we keep our heads held high. We fill up our hearts with courage and pride.
American Soldier is what we’re proud to be. Keeping America “The Land of the Free.”
My future family is what I’m fighting for, so my children won’t have to fight in this war.
We all can’t wait to get back to our families. But, until then, pray we all come home safely.
...
Julie McDonald is a personal historian and former journalist who lives in Toledo. She owns Chapters of Life, a company dedicated to preserving the past, one family’s story at a time. She may be reached at memorybooks@chaptersoflife.com.
Napavine Woman Writes Verse From the Front Lines of the War
Posted August 26, 10:42 am.
By Julie McDonald
The Chronicle
A 21-year-old Army soldier from Napavine finds comfort in an Iraqi war zone by sharing her thoughts and feelings in poetry.
Danielle Marie Wheeler, a specialist with the 4th Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division stationed at Kalsu, Iraq, tells what it’s like for a woman in a combat zone, outnumbered by the opposite sex 20 to 1.
“Females in Iraq are like finding a diamond in the rough. So if you were fat and ugly in the States, suddenly you’re hot,” Wheeler begins her poem, “The 15-Month Fling.”
Wheeler, who grew up in Medicine Bow, Wyo., is the granddaughter of Bob and Jean Wheeler of Napavine. The second of seven children born to Kevin and Laura Wheeler, she was schooled at home and obtained her high school equivalency at Laramie County Community College. A month later, in May 2006, she moved to Napavine to live with her grandparents.
Trained as a certified nursing assistant, Wheeler started looking into the Army to save money for college to earn a nursing degree.
“Joining the military was something I was always interested in,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I wanted to know what it was like from the inside.”
She joined the Army in July 2006, and left for Fort Jackson in South Carolina early the next month. She attended Advanced Individual Training in Fort Gordon, Georgia, to become a signal support systems specialist. She joined the 3rd Infantry Division April 4, 2007, and left for Kalsu, Iraq, with her signal unit in late October. As a member of the signal company, she helps provide phones and Internet for the forward operating base.
The titles of Danielle’s poems include “A Soldier’s Prayer,” “Trapped,” “Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Dreams,” and “Story of My Life.”
“The War Game” reads like an electronic battle on a video game or Wii, but the distinction between game and reality is apparent in lines like this: “When your buddy dies, eventually he’ll re-spawn. Out here they don’t come back, your buddy’s really gone.”
Wheeler started writing the poems after arriving in Iraq.
“When I was a civilian, I always wanted to know more about the trials, the hardships and the joys you experienced as a soldier,” she said. Eventually, she hopes to create a book of the poems to give people a better understanding of life in a war zone and to write about her fellow soldiers.
She also tries to illustrate the humanity of the soldiers, who she says are serving their country for a purpose greater than Iraq.
“A lot of the soldiers out here don’t support the war,” she wrote. “Anti-war groups march against the troops but what I want them to understand is we are people, just like the people you work with everyday. We have homes and families and needs just like everyone. ... Most of us joined the military for a better life for our families, to go to college. We’re just normal people trying to give the best life to all those we left behind.
“I think we’re doing a great job at teaching the Iraqis how to take care of their country once we’ve gone. As far as winning, I don’t think it’s a matter of winning or losing but a matter of teaching a people how to build better communities and better law enforcement.”
Wheeler said she doesn’t have strong opinions about the war.
“I try to keep an opened mind and I believe we really are helping these people,” she said. “I know we’re providing them with jobs, and food and medical care. I’m an incurable optimist so I try to find the good in every situation.”
Wheeler shares her poems with family members, friends, and her boyfriend.
“It’s hard to find someone to talk to sometimes because when I’m upset the last thing I want is to go and cry to some guy I work with all the time,” she wrote in her e-mail. He’ll “just think it’s PMS.”
She tries to be tough in the field, as she notes in one poem.
Not a Tear
“That’s not a tear; I’m not starting to cry.
I just got a bit of dust in my eye.
No, my eyes aren’t red and they’re not watery.
Maybe you shouldn’t try to calm me so softly.
It wasn’t tears that made your shoulder wet.
It’s getting really hot; that water is sweat.
My nose isn’t running. I’m not trembling.
That’s not why I’m shaking and sniffling.
OK, maybe I’m a little unhappy.
I just feel guilty when I look at you sadly.
I try telling myself I’m as tough as a guy.
That’s why I hate to be seen when I cry.
If you want to do something, just hold me close.
Wrap me up tight and don’t let me go.
No, I won’t get attached while we’re rocking in place.
I’m not melting at your touch, I just feel really safe.
I’m not falling in love wrapped up in your arms,
While I’m falling asleep to the beat of your heart.
Feel a little vulnerable now that you’ve seen me cry.
But at the same time, I know it’s all right.
As a woman in the military, the brown-eyed Wheeler, who stands 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 153 pounds, finds herself the object of a lot of flirting.
Some of the inconveniences she encounters in Iraq wouldn’t occur to most people -- difficulty finding soap, deodorant “that smells girlie” and other normal female hygiene products.
“That gets a little annoying after 10 months or so,” she said.
Sometimes life can become overwhelming, as it was for a female military police soldier who committed suicide. Wheeler wrote about the death in a poem called “Sad Soldier.” It includes this line: “We get to fly out on a plane or Black Hawks. But she’s going home in a wooden box.”
She also writes about missing home, family and friends. Although they enjoy volleyball, basketball, softball, movies and music nights, everyone still talks about going home and seeing family members.
“Mail is the best thing in the world,” Wheeler said. “It means everything to a soldier to get a letter or a box, most of the time from someone they don’t know, that is filled with thank yous and little things from home that are not available out here.”
It’s tough being away from home, especially when family members face difficulties.
“Being so far away makes you feel a little helpless because you feel like you can’t do anything but be there for emotional support,” Wheeler said.
After leaving home at 17, Wheeler was befriended by a woman named Wendy Hall, who has three children and lives in Rawlins, Wyo. She wrote a poem for them.
Dear Little Ones
I can’t tell you how much I love you.
I wish you’d understand the things that I do.
I miss you so much, if you only knew.
And, the way that it sounds, you miss me too.
You and your mommy are my whole world,
All of you cute, little, beautiful girls.
I wish I were with you. I want to come back.
Instead, I’m stuck in Iraq.
I look at your pictures again and again.
I remember what it was to hold you back then.
Reading you the same stories over and over,
I wonder if you’ll remember that when you’re older.
I saw you cry when I left and it broke my heart.
I cried too, knowing we’d be apart.
I didn’t leave because I don’t love you.
I’m over here fighting so you won’t have to.
For now, hold tight to your dad and your mom.
Ask them to hold you while your big sister’s gone.
We don’t know what will happen. Time someday may tell.
But until then, I love you. Your big sister, Danielle.
She also wrote about the people of Iraq, especially the women. She works with some Iraqi nationals, who react differently to women.
“Some will treat you like a man; others will look past you instead of at you, kinda nudge you aside when you’re working with them or talk to your male buddy instead of you.”
She wrote a poem about the life of an Iraqi woman.
Behind the Veil
If you asked who the strongest woman would be, I’d say an Iraqi woman.
They’re the strongest I’ve seen.
Here a woman can get beat up just for not being pretty enough.
I guess it all starts off when they are daughters.
Sold off to be married to other men by their fathers.
That poor woman, married to someone she doesn’t know,
Told she’d have his children and make his home.
If her husband is poor without a camel or a cow,
She’ll be outside in the sun pulling the plow.
When her husband comes home and his dinner is burned,
She’ll get a black eye she believes she earned.
She could try to dodge, get away from the attack.
She knows it’d be worse if she tried to fight back.
You think it doesn’t get worse than this?
All this is done in front of the kids.
When she starts to show her age he can beat her to death,
Find someone younger, prettier and marry again.
No matter what happens, she’s always wrong.
That’s not everything; I could go on and on.
If I were them, I’d wear a veil too.
No better way of hiding a bruise.
Even though she’s halfway around the world, Danielle Wheeler remains in the thoughts of her family and friends at home.
“I worry about her. I pray a lot about it,” said her grandfather, Bob Wheeler, who moved to Napavine in 2000 after living in Yakima from 1982, where he worked as an accountant until retiring in 1997. They wanted to live closer to their daughter and her husband, Kelly and Larry Smathers of Chehalis, and their two children, Ty and Casie.
They also live closer to Danielle’s older brother, Sean, who lives in Centralia and serves in an Air National Guard communications unit and works for a contractor at McChord Air Force Base. He and his wife, Brandy, have a daughter, Trinity.
As for Danielle, she’s focusing on her work, her friends, her family, and her writing.
“I try to take things one day at a time and focus on tomorrow instead of the whole of the deployment.”
Home
The thought of home feels like a dream. It seems it’s the place farthest away from me.
Way out here with the heat and the dust, behind cement walls so insurgents won’t hurt us.
Everyone has an image of home in his or her mind -- brothers, sisters and family of some kind.
And then there’s the soldier whose wife just had a baby. Away for a year, thinking of their child daily.
Back home, our friends are taking classes trying to stay ahead. That could have been us, we’re fighting instead.
But we never complain; we keep our heads held high. We fill up our hearts with courage and pride.
American Soldier is what we’re proud to be. Keeping America “The Land of the Free.”
My future family is what I’m fighting for, so my children won’t have to fight in this war.
We all can’t wait to get back to our families. But, until then, pray we all come home safely.
...
Julie McDonald is a personal historian and former journalist who lives in Toledo. She owns Chapters of Life, a company dedicated to preserving the past, one family’s story at a time. She may be reached at memorybooks@chaptersoflife.com.