by Vicki Cody
We had plenty of visitors that year in Washington, DC. My parents came often and loved seeing all the sights in the picturesque city, and our big house came in so handy, oftentimes I felt as I were running a bed-and-breakfast.
As the Pentagon was a hub for military personnel, we were always running into people we knew from other places, people moving in or out, people attending a course or a school. Dick frequently called to say he was bringing someone home for dinner or to spend the night. One of the things I loved about Army life was reconnecting with friends from previous assignments. I made new friends in my neighborhood and enjoyed a simple life at Fort Myer. After the hectic pace of our husbands being in command positions and the associated responsibilities, it was a welcome break.
Dick worked long hours, but I was so content that it didn’t bother me. He hardly traveled, and even if he went in to his office on the weekends, we had more time together than we had had in years. We explored DC and enjoyed numerous movie theaters, restaurants, museums, and plays at the Kennedy Center. Georgetown was just minutes from Fort Myer, and we loved the old restaurants and bars, particularly in Old Town Alexandria, just a fifteen-minute drive down the George Washington Parkway. We were invited to embassy receptions full of interesting people from other countries, and festivities at the homes of the highranking generals at Fort Myer; I loved seeing their beautiful houses. There were just enough official commitments to be fun and interesting.
We also made two trips to Texas A&M that fall. The first time we saw Tyler march onto Kyle Field with the Corps of Cadets, it was every bit as awe-inspiring as our initial glimpse of Clint doing the same. The boys were happy and enjoying every minute of being Aggies.
As the millennial new year approached, there were fears that all the computers and communications systems would crash at midnight on December 31, because computers were not configured for the year 2000. That could have been a disaster, militarily and strategically, since the Pentagon is the nerve center of the entire US military. Dick worked around the clock to make sure that the Army’s operations center would be up and running no matter what happened. As excited as everyone was for Y2K, we were all a little apprehensive and didn’t know what to expect at midnight on December 31.
The boys came home for their Christmas break, and the house was filled to capacity with my parents, Chris and Ashley, Chris’s fiancé Tom, and two friends from Texas A&M. What I remember the most about those holidays was the laughter that filled the house. When we weren’t sightseeing, we were making funny videos and cracking up until our sides ached. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, bundled up in our winter coats, with glasses of champagne, horns, and poppers, standing arm in arm on the hill overlooking Washington, DC, we watched the spectacular fireworks across the Potomac. Dick was at the Pentagon, but just after midnight, when all was quiet and the communication systems hadn’t crashed, he was able to come home. He joined us on the hill, and we watched more fireworks with the monuments in the distance and rang in a new decade.
While the boys were home, a young woman named Brooke with a soft Texas drawl called regularly for Tyler. Also an Aggie, she had met him at A&M right before he left for the Christmas break. He told me that she was different from any other girl. “Mom, I think she’s the one,” he confided.
I was surprised that he seemed to know so soon, but, then again, I knew the first time I met Dick, so we were anxious to meet her.
The boys went back to school. It was Clint’s last semester, and he would get commissioned into the Army after graduation. He was anxiously waiting to hear whether he’d gotten into the aviation branch and flight school.
And if life wasn’t already good, it got even better when Joe and Nancy Taylor moved to the DC area. I thought, My prayers have been answered!
When the boys went off to college and I saw them with their civilian friends, I realized yet again just how different Army life was. Tyler told me how he tried to explain his childhood to Brooke’s family, generations of East Texans who had always lived in Mount Pleasant, when Tyler had lived in eleven different places in his twenty years. I decided to make scrapbooks that would tell their stories and capture their unique lives as Army brats. I worked on Clint’s scrapbook that winter so I could give it to him for his graduation. It was an outlet for my creative juices, and it fulfilled my need to put things in order. I couldn’t wait to give it to him.
Our parents joined us in College Station for Clint’s graduation. It was hard to believe he was finished with college, getting commissioned, and heading off to flight school. Another proud moment for all us was watching Dick swear Clint in as a second lieutenant. Clint and Tyler were officially second-generation Army officers.
That same weekend, Dick got some big news. When he got off the phone with General Shinseki, he turned to me with a huge grin and said, “I’ve been selected to command the 101st Airborne Division! We’re going back to Screaming Eagle country!”
One of the most important phone calls of his career, and it happened right there in our room at the La Quinta Inn in College Station, Texas. We had much so celebrate that weekend: Clint’s graduation and future career in the Army, and Dick’s future assignment in the 101st Airborne Division.
We went back to DC ready to pack up for a really big adventure for the two of us. I had loved every minute of the ten months we’d lived there, but we were on our way to division command and our final rendezvous with destiny.
PS: Who would’ve thought in 1983, when Dick took command of his first aviation company, in Savannah, that it would someday lead to his being the first aviation branch Army aviator to command the famed 101st Airborne Division—a division that infantry generals usually commanded? While it seemed unbelievable, it felt like the most natural thing, as if everything had been leading us to that point in time.
Thoughts on Just Being Me
It’s pretty much a full-time job just being me. Unlike Dick, who, as he went up in rank and position, had an entourage that grew in relation to the number of stars he acquired, I was always an army of one. By the time he was a four-star general, Dick had enlisted aides, officer aides, speech writers, public affairs people (PAO), drivers, personal security (PSD), a communications soldier (COMMO), and an entire staff working for him. I had me. During those years, we had one or two enlisted aides who worked at our quarters during the day. They kept the house clean, took care of Dick’s uniforms, and helped me with all our official entertaining. They were invaluable to me because of the amount of entertaining and the scope of it, but I didn’t enjoy having people in my space, in my kitchen, on my turf. That was always a struggle for me. I guess it was a good thing I didn’t have a big entourage, because I probably would not have liked it.
I’ve always thought that in order to really get to know yourself, you need to have some alone time. After all, how can you know what you are made of, how can you really get to know yourself and listen to your inner voice, if you have people around you all the time? Being an Army wife affords you the opportunity to be on your own from the day you get married. I went from being a daughter living at home to a sorority house full of young women to being an Army wife. As soon as I married Dick, I spent more time by myself than I ever had, and in a place far from home. At first, staying by myself, especially at night, was a bit intimidating. In Hawaii, when Dick went to the Big Island for training, a family with whom he had become close while he was a bachelor insisted I stay with them. I was more than glad to accept their offer, but after a few of those weekly visits, I realized I wanted to stay at our apartment, alone. It was nice to know that I had somewhere to go if I wanted to, but I was ready to be by myself. That first year of marriage taught me that it was okay to feel that way, and that was a milestone for me. To me, it was empowering to know that I could handle things in Dick’s absence, and it gave me a chance to get to know myself a little better.
Once, during a lengthy deployment and a lot of alone time, I remarked to my sister, “I’ve had time to take a good look at myse
lf, and I’m not sure I like all that I see.” She just laughed, but it was the truth. It’s important to know your flaws and idiosyncrasies, as well as your good points. I’ve had people tell me that I possess great self-awareness, and I always say that’s because Dick has left me to my own devices too often. Indeed, I do a better job at “policing” myself than anyone else, and I can give myself a good talking-to when I need to. All of that self-analysis is easier to do when no one is around.
Over the years, as I came to grips with my separations from Dick, I tried to use the time to my advantage. Whether I was taking a class or teaching one, learning a craft or taking Barkley to dog obedience school, I learned to embrace those solitary moments. Army life gave me opportunities like moving overseas with two kids, learning my way around a large foreign city, moving into and out of Army quarters by myself, taking long road trips with the kids or by myself. All of those experiences made me stronger and emboldened me to feel like I can do pretty much anything. There’s not much that intimidates me at this point, and that is a good feeling.
Besides the separations, I also had to learn how to deal with the fact that my life could change in an instant because of what Dick did for a living. After each accident, each loss of a friend, as I watched young widows face their fate, I thought a lot about how I could prepare myself, just in case it happened to Dick. I never had a morbid obsession with those kinds of thoughts; rather, I was just learning to accept the nature of Dick’s business. I knew that being strong mentally, physically, and spiritually would help me face whatever life was going to throw at me. Once we had kids, it was even more important, because who would take care of them, if not I?
Both of my parents were good role models who instilled in my siblings and me compassion, kindness, respect for others, proper manners, and enjoyment of life’s blessings. From my dad, I inherited a sense of adventure and a love for the open road. We were not wealthy, so we didn’t go to Europe or exotic locations like the Caribbean, but every summer we hit the highway for a vacation. My dad, armed with maps and brochures and our Pontiac Bonneville loaded to capacity, took us to spots up and down the East Coast and into the Midwest: World’s Fairs, Florida, Cape Cod, Niagara Falls, Lake Placid, and annual Yankees ballgames in New York City. My love of map reading began on those journeys, and I learned from a pro. My dad knew the entire United States—you could call him day or night for directions. If he didn’t know something, I would hear him rustling the road maps that he kept by his chair. If my dad were alive today, he would scoff at the use of GPS devices for navigation, and I couldn’t agree more. There’s nothing like the challenge of finding your way from a map or, better yet, from memory.
My mother served as my role model for being a good wife and a stay-at-home mom. She showed my sister and brother and me that nothing was more satisfying and more important than raising good kids. It was from her that I learned the importance of taking care of myself and nourishing my mind and body—things like eating properly (three meals a day), having a regular sleep schedule, looking presentable, and having hobbies and interests that gave me pleasure. It was a combination of those lessons that my parents passed on to me when I was growing up that helped prepare me for my role as an Army wife.
Dick brought out the athlete in me. Since he played every sport known to humankind, it made it easier for me to stay active and to try different sports with him. I always belonged to a gym, a fitness center, or an aerobics studio. I didn’t work out because I wanted the perfect body; I worked out or went to classes because it made me feel good. It was important that I have some “me” time, if only for an hour or two a few times a week.
I’ve talked about skiing throughout this book; from our early days of dating to our ski trips with our sons to the years when he was a general and we needed to get away from everything, it was the sport that was best for our souls and that rejuvenated us when we needed it most.
My hobbies—knitting, sewing, reading, cooking, and so on—were also gratifying, and I loved learning new crafts, like woodworking, painting, and calligraphy. I also taught knitting classes. Hobbies not only gave me pleasure but were constructive things to do while the boys were in school, and they kept me sane while Dick was gone.
Eventually, I started writing. Dick bought me my first computer/word processor, and the words just poured out of me. I wrote what I thought would be a children’s book about Army life. I loved writing about Army life; it was like therapy for me and a way to express myself. I didn’t know where it would lead me, but I knew there was a reason for what I was feeling and writing. It was just what I needed during those lonely times when Dick was off doing his “Rambo” thing. Maybe those first writing exercises were meant to be a learning experience that would lead me down this path and inspire me to one day write this story.
Another critical aspect of my well-being is my sense of humor. My ability to laugh at myself, at Dick, at life—even in scary, dark times—has gotten me through some of life’s biggest challenges, and I’m thankful for it. I try hard always to find a silver lining in difficult situations.
I don’t know what I would have done without my friendships with my fellow Army wives. While I had a very close relationship with my mom and my sister and considered them my closest allies, they lived far from me, so it was my Army girlfriends whom I counted on day to day and especially when our husbands were gone. They were the only ones who truly understood this crazy way of life.
When I look back over the years and all the different volunteer work and advisory positions that I held with organizations—the Red Cross, the thrift shop, the boys’ various schools, booster clubs, Officers’ Wives’ Clubs, women’s conferences, a homeless shelter, the USO—I realize how much all of those experiences enriched my life in countless ways. I learned to facilitate, foster teamwork, mediate, manage, supervise, plan events, fund-raise, speak before groups, and make decisions—and, most important, I learned about life and people. While the courses and classes that the Army offered taught me about the Army, it was my volunteer work with people that taught me the most about life. And all of those experiences prepared me for the role I would play when Dick rose to the highest rank in the Army.
Being a mom was, and still is, the best role I have played and my greatest accomplishment. When the boys went off to college, some of my friends and relatives thought I would have a really tough time. Because I had built my world around raising our boys and was very close to both of them, I guess people assumed that I would have trouble adjusting. But I proved them wrong. I suppose the first twenty years of my marriage, I was defined by my role as Dick’s wife and Clint and Tyler’s mom—and that was absolutely what I wanted. I would not change one thing about those years. But I never lost sight of who I was, as a woman and as a person. When the boys left home, I just had to shift gears and find my inner self again. (I think it was always there—I was just busy being a mom.) I knew that my role as an Army wife, sharing my experiences and mentoring young spouses, would carry me through the next phase of my life.
As Clint and Tyler prepared to go into the military, they called on their dad more and more for advice and counsel. There was a definite shift in my caregiving, a natural evolution—but when an opportunity presented itself, whether it was a road trip, sleeping on air mattresses in an empty apartment while waiting for household goods, or a quiet midnight snack before a deployment to Afghanistan, I seized the moment and relished it. To watch our two sons grow into fine men, husbands, fathers, and great Army officers has been my greatest source of joy.
I have always loved the French phrase raison d’être, which means “reason to be.” I love being Clint and Tyler’s mom, and I loved being Dick Cody’s Army wife, walking beside him on his journey. That was my raison d’être.
18
A Final Rendezvous with Destiny
As the soldier at the gate snapped to attention and yelled, “Air assault, sir!” I thought back to that first time, sixteen years earlier, when we drove through the gate
s of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. A flood of memories washed over me as I recalled our three different tours (seven years) there, in different units and different neighborhoods, raising our boys and making some of the best memories and friends we will ever know. I realized, We’re not that young couple anymore. We’re older, more worldly, more seasoned, and those two young boys are now lieutenants in the Army. Barkley, our dog, is the only passenger in the back seat. Maybe we look a little different, but we are still the same Dick and Vicki Cody that we were back in 1984—excited for the new assignment, committed to the Army, and, most importantly, still committed to each other.
A few days later, sitting in the stands, surrounded by family and friends, looking out at approximately fifteen thousand soldiers on the huge parade field, a field that held so many memories, with the sun shining and Old Abe in the background, I was completely in awe of Dick, more so than I had been at any other promotion or event in his career. There were only ten divisions in the active-duty Army, and he had been selected to command one of them. I looked at him standing at attention and thought, He can do anything.
Dick and I settled into our new roles. We went to twenty-five change-of-command ceremonies that summer, at the battalion and brigade levels. Not only did those events help us get to know the command teams in the division, but they also helped educate me on the various units and what their missions were. And we knew from experience how much it meant to the people and the units that we were there. I loved getting to know the officers, NCOs, soldiers, and their families. Dick was not only the division commander but also the post commander, which was much like being the mayor of a midsize city. We had a lot of civic duties both on and off the post, and our calendars were filled to capacity. That was the first time Dick had an enlisted aide who worked for him and was in our house during the day. The aide was a big help to both of us, given our busy schedules, but it was an adjustment for me.