by Tanya Biank
One day as she and Brian were going through a checkpoint to get on post, she found out that officer and enlisted families had different registration stickers on their car windshields—officers blue and enlisted red.
“How come the guards know who to salute?” she had asked. Only officers got saluted. “They know because of the color of the registration stickers on the car,” he told her. She pondered it for a bit and decided that it made sense. But then she wondered, Who thought of that? What kind of mind goes into such minutiae? Rita wished that whoever came up with that had been in charge of rations the time Brian and his buddies didn’t get meals in the field because someone in charge forgot to tell someone else in charge that there was a group of soldiers out in the woods on Bragg in need of food.
As Rita waited for the car class to start, she overheard snippets of chatter about hair and daughters’ ballet classes and caught some of the women glancing her way. She felt as if she were back in junior high. They’re judging me, Rita thought. They think they’re better than I am. You’re no better than I am, and furthermore you dress stupid! That’s what Rita wanted to shout.
When the women formed a half circle around a sedan, Rita stayed in the back. A soldier began explaining what was under the hood when one woman interrupted, “I need to know how to check my oil. How do you pull the thingy out?” Rita rolled her eyes. This was something so basic, like not knowing how to order off a menu.
He handed the dipstick to the cotton candy lady, and she held it like a Fourth of July sparkler. “Oh, you have to wipe it off,” she said. She returned the dipstick to the soldier and looked at the grease on her fingers as if it were Martian dust. When another woman asked how to pop the hood of the car, Rita felt like walking away. This had been a total waste of time.
Over the next few months Rita had begun to notice other categories of Army wives within her own circle in the platoon. It’s not hard to put the women in distinct groups based on their personalities and their identification with their husbands, but Rita’s view of them was particularly colorful.
The “shit stirrers” irritated Rita the most. They were the gossipers. These were wives whose lives seemed so shallow and silly; they never volunteered for anything. They never cooked a hot dog or washed a car, but they never stopped talking crap about somebody or something. As far as Rita was concerned, gossip was a waste of time and emotion. These women just didn’t have enough to occupy their days.
Neither did the drama queens, who embellished their sagas for the sake of attention: “I had to wait three hours to get my prescription filled at Womack, and I felt so ill I had to call my husband’s platoon leader so he could have John come pick me up. The lieutenant called last night, because he was so worried about me.”
The whiners always had to have something to bitch about. These women were so absorbed in their own woes they never stopped to think that all the wives were in the same fix. Didn’t the whiners know that sergeant so-and-so was an equal-opportunity annoyer, and that chances were good their husbands weren’t the only ones getting shit upon? There was no assuaging a whiner. If Rita tried to offer comfort, the whiner would always respond with the whiner’s trademark, “my husband,” as in “Things will only get better when my husband gets out of the field,” as if her husband were the only grunt sucking it up in the Army.
The rank pullers were annoying women who loved to wear their husband’s rank, as if they, too, had taken an oath to defend the Constitution. Rita overheard one rank puller tell a young private’s wife at an FRG meeting, “My husband is your husband’s squad leader, so you treat me accordingly.” Rita was so angry she wanted to shout, Ya know, I’m not in the Army and neither are you, so fuck off.
The ass kissers weren’t any better. They were usually married to ass-kissing men, and as an ass-kissing couple, they would smooch the hide of anyone who might get them ahead.
Finally, there were the shining happy people. The perky, cutesy shining happy people who had perky, cutesy marriages and perky, cutesy kids and always a perky, cutesy story to share. Those chicks drove Rita nuts.
Rita tried not to associate with any of these women more than she had to. She strived to be in the “I’ve-got-my-shit-together club.” She wanted to be around women who could handle themselves and who had control over their house and their children. She wanted to be around women who made the best of it, who were stable and strong. That was the only category of wives Rita felt comfortable with.
And yet Rita was learning that it wasn’t that easy to find the right balance for herself. Soldiers had to take matters at face value and follow orders, and the Army expected their wives to do the same.
Spouses who challenge the system are branded as troublemakers. You can’t just call up the company first sergeant and ask, “How come my husband’s not home yet?” Even though some wives do. Soldiers always loved telling me about those women. Every unit has some. You can’t be too confrontational, either, but sometimes you just have to put your foot down.
One night, when Rita sat on the couch and rubbed Brian’s back, she felt a lump on his spine.
“What is that?”
“I dunno, I’ve had it,” he said.
Rita pleaded with Brian to get it checked out, but he refused.
“Baby, you need to go to sick call.”
“No, I don’t wanna be called a pussy for a week.”
So Rita made the appointment herself, but Brian called her that morning and said he’d have to cancel. His squad leader wouldn’t let him go. Rita was furious.
In the Army, pecking order is everything. Whoever has more stripes than you owns your life.
“I’ll be there in a little bit,” she told him. She dug a T-shirt out of her drawer with jagged lettering that coalesced into “motha fucka” if you stared at it long enough. She put it on and headed over to the barracks. When she found Brian and sergeant Clay, she stood with her arms crossed and stared at the sergeant, who was chubby and balding. I’ll knock him straight down if I have to. She had discovered that men got uncomfortable when she looked them in the eye.
“He has an appointment,” she said keeping her voice level. “He’s going. I’m here to take him now.”
Sergeant Clay eyed Rita back. “All right, go.”
It turned out Brian would have to have surgery to remove two cysts. One more time Rita wondered which category of wife she was.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Christmas season is a busy time in Fayetteville, not only for Army families but also for thieves who are as plentiful as the eggnog and white lights. The cops work longer shifts patrolling the area for thugs looking to steal presents from homes and cars or out of shoppers’ hands. The problem is so prevalent that the Fayetteville Police Department has a “Holiday Safety Program,” complete with mobile police stations set up in mall parking lots and other shopping centers along Skibo Road. It wouldn’t be Fayettenam if there weren’t some shadiness around the Christmas cheer.
In the middle of it all, Army wives go about readying themselves for the holiday. Veteran wives dig out their Czechoslovakian crystal, wooden German Christmas tree ornaments and nutcrackers, Korean red silk table runners, and Yuletide craft-show finds, all memories from a lifetime of Christmases spent elsewhere. Tastes honed abroad mean that commissaries everywhere line their shelves with European chocolates and sweets, and wives dig out their glühwein recipes. Wicker baskets in foyers or kitchens are jammed with Christmas cards, some in foreign languages, from old friends stationed around the world. Army wives learn never to write entries in ink in their address books. Army families are truly thankful for time together over the holidays. It can be rare. I had lunch the other day with two friends whose husbands are spending their second consecutive Christmas in Iraq.
Meanwhile officers’ spouses shop wherever they like, while some “junior enlisted wives,” the politically correct name for lower-enlisted wives, are almost entirely dependent on an Army Christmas food basket or a donated toy. Throughout the
season, in town and on post, Army wives, who usually are socially separated by their varied ranks, and geographically by their neighborhoods, cross paths often, but their real stories are mostly hidden behind the Christmas garlands and holiday pleasantries.
In December 2001 Special Operations troops from Fort Bragg had been in Afghanistan for almost two months, and more were on the way. It’s common to say what a difference a year can make, but it is especially true in the Army. This Christmas was unlike the previous one in ways Andrea Lynne, Rita, Delores, and Andrea could never have imagined, courtesy of Uncle Sam. They were following their individual paths, yet all were influenced by the military, which, like the weather, can be mercurial and unpredictable. In fact all four women would face new, unforeseen challenges in 2002. At that moment Andrea Lynne was marking her first Christmas as a widow; Rita, less naive about the Army, was nevertheless still finding her way; Delores’s son was deployed to Kosovo; and Andrea, whose husband was in Afghanistan, was alone with a new house, a new job, new friends, and newfound independence.
Andrea found a spot next to Joanne’s Suburban in the Bojangles parking lot in Spring Lake, and the women walked into the fast-food restaurant together. With them were Joanne’s two youngest children, five-year-old Abbey and thirteen-month-old Luke. Bojangles was having its grand opening, and Andrea suggested they go for the fried chicken and biscuits. It was 11:00 A.M., and they were a few steps ahead of the rush, which started promptly at 11:30 A.M., when the post’s forty-two thousand soldiers were released for lunch.
The women had caravanned from Joanne’s house in Cameron. The town of Spring Lake, with a population of more than eight thousand, buffered Bragg to the north of the reservation and was a smaller version of Fayetteville—in a bratty kid brother sort of way. The main drag through town was a charmless strip of billboards, fast-food restaurants, car lots, gas stations, and Chinese buffet restaurants.
Andrea had spent the last two nights sleeping on the Stricklands’ sectional couch. She’d rented out the house in Cameron but had only just finished moving boxes and furniture into the new house in Stedman, which they had recently bought.
The women ordered their food, and Andrea insisted on paying as a thank-you to Joanne for letting her stay at the house. It was rare that the women went out together for a meal. With eight children between them, they usually just ate at each other’s house so the kids could play.
Now Joanne got a high chair, and Andrea found a free table near the front of the restaurant next to the trash cans. The place was already filling up. She took off her jacket—it was a cool morning—and sat down. She wore her hair loose and looked sharp in khakis and a white dress shirt.
After lunch she’d head straight to work. It was the first week of December, and the store was already busy with Christmas shoppers. It would grow only more hectic in the next few weeks.
“You heard from Brandon?” Joanne asked, as she fed Luke a spoonful of mashed potatoes and gravy. Joanne always worried about Brandon when he was away. “When is he coming home?”
“I have no idea,” Andrea said between bites of dirty rice. Brandon had deployed to Afghanistan less than a week ago, just after Thanksgiving. Of all his assignments this would be the most dangerous. Andrea couldn’t tell anyone he was leaving. She herself didn’t know where he was going, but she had called Joanne the day before his departure.
“Do you want to talk to Brandon?” she had asked.
Joanne thought it was an odd question. She talked with Andrea every day, and she’d never asked if she wanted to talk with him. “Should I?”
“Trust me, you want to talk to him.”
Brandon picked up the phone. “Hey, how you doin’?”
“I’m fine,” Joanne said, almost quizzically.
“I’ll be praying for you, and you be praying for me. Pray for our country, and our leaders and my dad.”
“I will.”
“I look forward to getting one of your home-cooked meals.”
“Well, okay, you’ll get another one, don’t worry.”
“Okay, I love you.” Brandon always said that.
Brandon called Mark later that evening and repeated his prayer request. The next day Andrea called again. “Brandon’s gone,” she said.
“Is he where I think he’s at?” Joanne asked.
“I don’t know where he’s at, but he had to leave.” The kids took it hard. Harlee worried that her father would die.
The day Brandon left was the day the Floyds had planned to move. It was awful timing, but you had to expect that in Army life. Andrea had accepted that long ago. Thank goodness friends from church and Brandon’s unit helped, and Andrea’s two sisters came from Ohio, too. Lending a helping hand was also part of Army life. Her sisters took the three kids back to Ohio with them for a couple of months so Andrea could get settled in. With three little ones, a new job, a new house to fix up, and Brandon away, the arrangement made sense to Andrea, though Brandon wasn’t thrilled with it.
At least Thanksgiving had been a chance to celebrate a holiday together as a family. Andrea had tried out her new turkey fryer, and Brandon showed up on the Stricklands’ doorstep with a sample of the results.
By noon Fort Bragg soldiers and airmen from Pope Air Force Base had filled the restaurant, and a long line of cars waited in the take-out lane.
“How are the kids liking Ohio?” Joanne asked.
“They’re doing okay,” Andrea said. She was never one to give many details. Joanne’s seven-year-old daughter, Brooke, was best friends with Andrea’s daughter, Harlee, and the two girls missed each other terribly.
“Andrea, I know Harlee’s okay, but she hated leaving her friends at school, and she misses Brooke.”
“I know, but what else am I gonna do?”
“You’ve got to keep the kids in mind. Are you going home to see the kids, or is your mom coming down for Christmas?” Joanne asked.
“No, they’re gonna stay up there. I might be able to get up to Ohio, but I don’t know. I volunteered to work over the holidays. A lot of people want off, and we can use the extra money. And I need the time to get the house ready.”
A $220,000 house with $1,800 monthly mortgage payments, along with all the remodeling they wanted to do on the twenty-year-old home, was more than the Floyds could really afford. Brandon’s family had lent the couple $10,000 to show the bank they had enough equity to get the house loan, since they bought most things on credit.
“Well, you know you’re welcome to spend Christmas with us,” Joanne said.
“I know. Thank you, but I want to get the house ready for when Brandon gets back. There’s so much to do. Between the store starting up, Christmas, and the house, it’s crazy.” She told Joanne about all her plans: taking down wallpaper, painting, installing ceramic tile in the kitchen, putting wood floors in the dining room, buying curtains and new furniture. “I haven’t hardly unpacked any boxes yet, but I’ve started buying the kids stuff for Christmas.” Her present for Brandon was a fifteen-hundred-dollar gun safe the size of a refrigerator. She knew he’d like it, and she got a discount on it through Dick’s.
“Well, I wish I was closer to help you unpack,” Joanne said. “Maybe one of these weekends I can help you.”
The women stayed for an hour and a half, though Andrea mostly just picked at her chicken. She didn’t eat much of her dirty rice or macaroni and cheese either. Joanne suggested she take it to work and have it for dinner. When they finally walked outside, Andrea carried Luke and waited by the Suburban as Joanne went back to get Luke’s jacket, which she had forgotten.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do about church?” Joanne asked, as she buckled Luke into his car seat. The new house was an hour’s drive from Cameron. “Are you going to find a new one in Fayetteville?”
“You know we really want to try to keep coming to yours.”
They hugged each other good-bye.
“Give me a call tonight when you get home,” Joanne said, “and mak
e sure you eat; you hardly touched your lunch.”
Andrea got in her van and headed south down Bragg Boulevard. Tonight would be the first night in her new house. Alone. She wasn’t used to this kind of freedom. Most of the time she was a mother and wife, on demand for everyone else. This would be a change.
Two nights before, she’d gone out with her coworkers to a nightclub and stayed until 1:00 A.M. They were a fun bunch, and when they had asked her to come along, Andrea said yes. She enjoyed their company. She had never really been one to go out or drink, but that night she did, and she came back to the Stricklands’ a little tipsy.
“Did you get lost? Where’ve you been?” Joanne had asked when she finally walked in the door. The two women enjoyed joking with each other, but Joanne was serious this time. She had stayed up out of worry.
“No, we just went out for a bit, met lots of people,” Andrea said, almost giddily. She smelled of smoke from the bar.
“Where’d you go?”
“We went to a nightclub. I’m real tired.”
Andrea could sense her friend’s disapproval. She was a preacher’s wife, after all. “I just wanted to get acquainted with the people at work.”
“You better be careful how much you get acquainted,” Joanne said. “I don’t mean to talk to you like you’re a child, Andrea, but you’re a Christian—and going to a place like that and being with people like that, they’ll pull you down more than you can pull them up.”
“I know,” Andrea said. “I’ll remember.” Right now, though, she would concentrate on her job and the adventure of being on her own.
With Maddie’s Christmas list in her purse, Andrea Lynne stood in line next to Roland in the checkout lane at Dick’s. It was a few weeks before the holiday, and at Roland’s suggestion, they had gone shopping. She knew Maddie would love the basketball sneakers. A helpful blond employee in khakis and a blue shirt brought their purchases to the register.