War's lonely front
Home demands, worry are formidable challenges for wives of deployed Marines
By Jenifer Goodwin
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 25, 2006

The first time Bonnie Nielson's husband left for Iraq, she knew she'd miss him terribly. But she was caught up in the excitement, too. Her husband, a Marine helicopter pilot, was going on an adventure.

Their children treated the deployment like a party. Saying goodbye in the middle of the night at Camp Pendleton, they ran around with the other kids, thrilled to be up past bedtime and outside in their pajamas.

In February, Nielson's husband left for a second tour of duty in Iraq. This time, the thrill was replaced by the knowledge of what lay ahead: seven months of worry, lonely evenings and handling the demands of four children under age 7 on her own. This time, her children clung to their father's legs and begged him to stay.

“The kids were frantic,” Nielson said. “I have never seen them so sad as I saw them that night.”

The eight women sitting at Janelle Field's kitchen table nodded sympathetically. Their husbands are all members of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268, which left for Iraq in February along with 25,000 Camp Pendleton and Twentynine Palms Marines of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

With the war in its fourth year, many service members have been sent multiple times. Each time they leave it is harder on their families.

Couples that didn't have children when the war started now have them. Children who were too young to understand previous deployments plead with their parent to come home. Spouses, of whom the vast majority are wives, feel torn between being supportive and wanting their husband home. They're exhausted from taking care of houses and children on their own and from the prolonged stress of war.

“The first time, ignorance was bliss,” said Kathy Clanton, a mother of two. “This time, I know how long seven months is. It took me two weeks not to be angry.”

Support network

In every war fought by Americans, there are nervous wives waiting at home. The military understands this and has a system – called family readiness – to help couples deal with the long separations.

A big part of the Marine Corps' family readiness is the Key Volunteer Network, spouses who look out for fellow spouses during deployments and pass along information from the commanding officer in Iraq to cut down on scary rumors that can run rampant on bases.

The official reason for the gathering at Field's house was the monthly meeting of helicopter squadron 268's Key Volunteers. Unofficially, groups such as these have become a lifeline.

The women at Field's house were from all over the country. They included working moms, stay-at-home moms and newlyweds without kids. Some were college graduates. Some were not. Their range of ages spanned 15 years.

“All of us come from totally different backgrounds and most of us don't have that much in common other than that our husbands are Marines,” said Nielson, 31, from Utah. “But there's a sisterhood here I can't find anywhere else.”

While their husbands are away, they're companions and confidants. They share everything from gowns for Marine Corps balls to a language incomprehensible to outsiders.

“The MAG XO said the MAG FRO situation is still up in the air,” Field said, raising her voice over a TV cartoon that had been turned up to full blast by a toddler with a remote control. “There's an ADJ coming from MAWTS, but we don't know when.”

Field, a mother of three daughters and coordinator of the squadron's Key Volunteers, is an upbeat, take-charge kind of woman with curly brown hair. Like several of the women at the table, she swore she'd never marry a Marine. On her kitchen wall, next to a plaque that says “Home is Where the Marine Corps Sends Us,” are three clocks, each set to a different time: California, Boston (where her in-laws live) and Iraq.

On the agenda that night was urging everyone to put stickers on their children's car seats so police would know whom to call in case of a wreck.

“We have to think of worst-case scenarios,” Field said, running the meeting while bouncing her 19-month-old on her knee, bandaging two invisible boo-boos and handing out cookies to the 14 children in attendance.

As the evening went on, their conversation turned to the worries really on their minds.

With Dad gone, the kids are struggling.

Lisa Casey tried to soothe her 3-year-old son, who was growing more inconsolable by the minute. Since his father left, “It's like he's reverted back to a 1-year-old,” Casey said.

Kathy Clanton's children have started sleeping in bed with her. When her husband calls, her 5-year-old son shouts at his dad to come home. “He says, 'Come home, Daddy! Come home, Daddy, now!' ” Clanton said.

Even Field is having trouble.

“One Sunday my daughter said, 'Can't we just go pick up Daddy at his office? He'd really like to go to church with us today,' ” Field said. “Sometimes I feel like, 'Oh, I can't do this today.' ”

Her 5-year-old has been late to kindergarten 13 times since her husband left. The school sent her a letter reminding her of the importance of getting him there on time.

The reason they've been running behind? Her 5-year-old refuses to go to school. It's not easy geting her 3-year-old and 19-month-old into the minivan with her eldest insisting she's staying home in her pj's.

“It's like she knows I only have so much to give,” Field said.

Shared experiences

When a Marine is newly assigned to the squadron, Field and her team ask the spouse to let them know her whereabouts at all times. The reason for keeping such close tabs isn't only out of concern for her well-being. If a Marine in their squadron is killed, the military notifies the spouse of the deceased before letting the others know their husbands are OK.

Fran Horvath, a 25-year-old newlywed, is a mental health manager from Jacksonville, Fla. She had little experience with military life when she got married and recoiled at the idea of having to tell people where she was going. She wanted nothing to do with a wives' club, figuring she'd have nothing in common with the women and all their kids. “I have my own identity,” she said. “I'm not just my husband's job.”

But she was lonely on base with her husband gone. She was having trouble finding a job. Her friends and family were all in Florida. Gradually, she realized she needed women around her who understood how she felt. “We have shared experiences, shared feelings and shared emotions,” she said.

One experience is having to face the prospect of young widowhood.

Shortly before Marines deploy, they fill out forms that spell out their wishes for funeral arrangements: who should tell their parents they're dead, whom they want as pallbearers, who will pick up the children from school if their spouse is too upset to drive.

“It's a very agonizing thing to go through,” Field said.

Marines also write a letter to their spouse, which remains sealed unless they don't come home.

To spare themselves worry, veteran wives do not watch the news. The first time her husband was in Iraq, Kathy Clanton watched CNN obsessively. “I didn't leave the TV. I didn't sleep,” she said.

But in the media age, it's hard to ignore. They spot stories on the Internet. Parents and in-laws, still watching CNN obsessively, call to see if they've heard anything.

So they hold their breath and wait for word from Iraq. Was it an Apache? A Black Hawk? Anything but a CH-46.

“It sounds horrible, but we get really excited when we find out it's not a 46,” said Julie Jameson, 23, a fifth-grade teacher from Houston.

Then they feel guilty for being relieved, knowing it's someone else's tragedy.

During the first days of the war, a helicopter crash killed four members of the squadron – Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Watersbey and Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy.

The crash was an accident, not the result of enemy fire. Wartime or not, flying military helicopters carries risks.

“We laugh and we joke, but it's a huge fear in our minds,” Jameson said.

About the only thing the women don't talk about is politics. The nation can argue over the war, but their concerns are more immediate: Will their husbands be able to e-mail this week? Do they have what they need to deal with coming Iraqi summer heat? Will they really come home on schedule in September?

“It's just part of our culture,” said Field, a veteran military wife at 38. “You know everybody has an opinion. If you got our whole group together you'd have the entire spectrum. But you can't focus on it. You have to focus on the mission. And that's not part of our mission.”

Speaking negatively about the war could be dangerous, Field said. If their husbands don't feel their support, “They won't be focused. And they can start to make mistakes.”

To Horvath, questioning the war would be like questioning her marriage.

“If we start asking those questions, we start doubting our role in the whole thing,” Horvath said. “What's the point of them going over there? Then I could say, 'What's the point of me being married? I don't need this lifestyle. It's hard.' ”

The daily grind

Still, the gathering at Field's kitchen table was no pity party. Laughing at the comments made by nonmilitary friends and acquaintances helped lighten the mood.

“I've had girls come up to me and say, 'Oh, I'd love to have my husband leave for a while,' ” Nielson said, her eyes widening at the audacity of it.

Then there are the women who compare their husband's business travel to a deployment. “I'm like, 'Oh, like he's in imminent danger in Chicago,' ” Jameson said.

Or the well-meaning older people who tell them seven months really isn't so long. “When you put the kids to bed and the house is quiet, you realize you really are alone,” Nielson said.

Nor is having a husband away at war like being a single parent, said Jenny Crouch, a mother of three. “It's not, 'I wish he was here to do the dishes,' ” she said. “I can do that. I just miss him.”

Jameson has been asked how often she can call her husband. She can't. “What I am supposed to call? 1-800-IRAQ?” she said.

Though communications aren't always reliable, service members in Iraq can call home and e-mail frequently, sometimes daily. The wives carry their cell phones on their hip, not buried in a purse, so they never miss a chance to hear their husband's voice.

But the accessibility cuts both ways.

The stark differences in the daily experiences – one spouse in a far off land, the other consumed with teething and chores and persuading a stubborn 5-year-old to go to school – can make conversations awkward.

Field asked her husband not to tell her too much about his job, casualty evacuation, which means transporting the wounded, including Iraqi children. “It really raises my anxiety level,” she said.

Though it's not easy to admit it, on particularly challenging days with the kids, she even feels envious. “He's getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep,” she said. “I remind him of that.”

Plus, couples can fight over the phone, but it's hard to resolve anything with someone 7,700 miles away. “The information age is a blessing and a curse,” Field said.

Life goes on

Even in peacetime, being a military wife is an itinerant lifestyle. Marines come and go from the squadron. Field already knows she'll be leaving in the fall, headed for an assignment in Rhode Island.

As close as the women have become, the bonds are temporary.

When their husbands come home, they won't see each other nearly as often. Life will be consumed by family outings and time together as a couple.

With President Bush's announcement that the U.S. military will be in Iraq for years to come, another group of wives will take their place.

The squadron hasn't even reached the halfway mark of the current deployment, and the wives have already heard the squadron is scheduled for another Iraq deployment the middle of next year.

“None of us walked into it blindly,” said Julie Jameson, cradling Jennifer Butt's snoozing baby while Field tried to keep her youngest from pulling her papers off the table. “Our husbands sat us down and told us what to expect.”

A loud crash from upstairs halted the women's conversation. They listened for crying, but none of the children was hurt. So they went back to talking, about a gift basket for a new mom and planning a girls' night out.

In the absence of tragedy, they did what they always do: got on with things.

Ellie