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thedrifter
10-07-08, 07:59 AM
Last modified Monday, October 6, 2008 12:16 PM PDT
MILITARY: Camp offers weekend getaway for Marine Corps wives

By BRIGID BRETT - For the North County Times

"Me-Time Ahead." "No stress." "No makeup."

The handpainted signs leading through the pine forest to the lodge in the San Bernardino Mountains announces the mission of Camp Getaway to the 85 women arriving for the weekend.

Some are there to celebrate decades of friendship; others have been given the weekend as a gift from their husbands. Among those determined to savor every moment are six members of Camp Pendleton's Enlisted Wives Club.

Started by a group of moms in 2005, Camp Getaway offers weekend retreats where women can leave behind the responsibilities of� home. This is the� first year the camp's owner,� Patti Londre, invited military wives to join their civilian counterparts.

"They are the unsung heroes," she said. "A weekend of fun and relaxation is almost unheard-of for the wives of deployed soldiers."

Just ask Veronica Duran. On a recent weekend in September, she grinned as she read the list of camp activities. Canoeing. A tie-dye clinic. Belly dance class.

"I'm just looking forward to that facial, to closing my eyes and doing nothing," she says.

Duran isn't used to doing nothing. An active volunteer, she has a 5-year-old daughter and works full time.

"I work and I work and I work," Duran said. "That's how I hold onto my sanity. When your husband is gone so much, you have to keep busy or you'll go crazy."

She and Staff Sgt. Carlos Duran were neighbors when they were kids in South Central Los Angeles. He teased her, she hated him, and their parents joked that one day they'd fall in love and get married. They did. Twelve years later, they're still together, at least when he's not deployed.

"People keep asking if it gets easier each time he has to go away," she said. "No, it gets harder. Each time, it hurts more."

Duran's husband has been deployed five times since their daughter was born: once to Japan, once to Egypt and three times to Iraq, where he was injured by shrapnel when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb and then again when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his campsite.

"It's been hard, very hard," she said. "But living on base, you can always find somebody who's been through what you're going through."

When their daughter was younger, Duran bought a cardboard playhouse and plastered it with photos of her husband. "Whenever he came home, I took millions of pictures so she'd have something to remember him by."

When the camp's yoga teacher, Jennifer Mumford, saw Londre's e-mail requesting donations for a group of military wives, she forwarded it to her mother, Florence Patrick.

"I know what they're going through," Patrick said. The memories of lying awake worrying about her husband when he was in Vietnam are still fresh, she said. She was glad to be able to support this new generation of war wives.

On the most recent outing, campers chatted in front of the crackling fireplace, their feet up on a huge coffee table that spilled over with magazines. Others sat around tables playing Monopoly and sipping Mad Housewife wine. "Oh baby, baby, it's a wild world," Cat Stevens crooned in the background.

During dinner, Ann Marie Brysiak called home to check on her three kids. Her 15-year-old son assured her all was well ---- he had even bathed his little brother.

Brysiak's jaw dropped. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised," she said. "He's used to being the man of the house. I feel guilty because I count on him way more than I should."

Brysiak's husband, Gunnery Sgt. Ed Brysiak, has been deployed to Iraq since January. He has four more months to go until he's back home.

There isn't a day that her 5-year-old doesn't wake up and ask whether his dad's coming home, but it's her 15-year-old she worries about the most. She worries about all the teenage sons of deployed fathers.

"They're growing up without male role models," she said. "I took CJ go-carting, but of course it wasn't the same."

Right before camp, Brysiak was recognized by Marine Headquarters Group in Washington, D.C., for her volunteer work with military families.

Mumford's husband, Sgt. Erik Dipper, was an aircraft mechanic before going into Camp Pendleton's Wounded Warrior Battalion, where he is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. After serving in Okinawa for 13 months, he was deployed twice to Iraq for seven months each time.

Now medically nondeployable, Sgt. Dipper wants to be an advocate and support other injured Marines.

"The service and sacrifice doesn't end when a Marine comes home," Mumford said. "Support is key to our families surviving the physical, mental and emotional challenges."

An artist, she has brought two tiny T-shirts to camp so she can tie-dye them for the couple's 1-year-old daughter.

By the closing ceremony on Sunday, the six women have canoed, belly-danced, made s'mores, soaked in the hot tub and giggled until the early hours of the morning.

One by one, they stood and fought back tears as they thanked Londre and the other campers.

"My husband called from Iraq this morning," Brysiak said. "He wants me to thank all of you for this weekend."

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

"He says that when he knows I'm being appreciated and taken care of, it makes it so much easier to do his job. He wants you all to know how thankful he is."

Ellie