by Tanya Biank
“I like your name,” Andrea Lynne commented, noticing the woman’s tag. “It’s the same as mine. You don’t run into too many Andreas.”
Andrea Floyd had walked all over the store helping them pick out sports equipment and athletic shoes. It was the kind of assistance Andrea Lynne appreciated. After all those years as an Army wife, she understood the meaning of service, and since Rennie’s death, she was especially sensitive to an act of kindness. She thanked the young woman several times.
Andrea had never been comfortable receiving compliments, and she shrugged off the praise. “Take care, and have a nice Christmas,” she said cheerfully before she walked away.
“You, too. Thanks again.” That woman has a caring spirit, Andrea Lynne thought, picking up some of Andrea’s energy and beginning to be a bit more enthusiastic about the season.
Just the week before, Maddie, who still believed in Santa Claus, had presented her mother with her Christmas list. Andrea Lynne put it to one side without even looking at it. Later after Maddie went to bed, she talked about it with Roland, who had been coming by the house several times a week.
“What are you going to buy her?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s time she stopped believing in Santa.” She took a sip of her Jack and Coke, Rennie’s drink. It was the only way she could sleep at night. Andrea Lynne was in a bitter mood. With Rennie gone, she didn’t feel like celebrating the holidays. “She probably knows the truth anyway, and I don’t feel like playing anymore.”
December is a busy social month on Army posts. The higher in rank your husband is, the more invitations you receive. There are Christmas formals, coffees, and lunches; platoon, company and battalion parties with Santa; and Christmas or New Year’s Day receptions at the commander’s quarters for officers and senior NCOs, where dress blues and cocktail dresses are required attire. Andrea Lynne always had a full holiday schedule.
She started to cry as she told Roland about family traditions—the shopping together, decorations, baking, parties, midnight mass. There were always toys for the poor and lots more for their own kids. Every Christmas Eve, she and Rennie were up till three or four in the morning wrapping presents. When the kids were young, he’d blow up a hundred red and green balloons and set them around the den with the toys, and Andrea Lynne would sprinkle a trail of “Santa dust” (foil stars and glitter) to each child’s room. On Christmas morning, if their quarters had a fireplace, Rennie would light a fire, and they’d put on Christmas carols while the children opened the gifts. Turkey dinner was always at three, dessert around seven, sometimes with friends. The couple would end the day snuggling on the couch, often with Andrea Lynne falling asleep on Rennie’s lap.
This year Andrea Lynne grudgingly got a tree, and she let the kids help her decorate it. She had been in the new house on Shawcroft Drive almost four months now. It was sunny and bright but nothing like the ivy-covered cottage and garden she’d always imagined having. She had each room painted a different color: yellow kitchen, burgundy dining room, green den—all fresh colors. She also bought new furniture and decorated in French provincial style with a bit of English country. After the holidays she was going to invite her friends over, open her garage and give away her hand-me-down antiques and thrift shop bargains. It was too painful to keep them.
Her bedroom was on the ground floor with a jetted tub in the bath and a private deck where the POW/MIA flag flew from the corner. At night she sometimes walked out, smoked a cigarette, and pictured Rennie walking toward her through the pines. Her closet was filled with black and white clothes on black and white hangers—“powmia outfits,” the children called them, because they were the color of the POW/MIA flag.
The banquet-size dining room was her favorite room. She and Rennie had always entertained. Now she would do it on her own.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving she had invited forty people, including many of the guests from their Christmas party the year before, for a “house blessing.” The ceremony was incredibly important to Andrea Lynne, who wanted to share a spiritual and emotional time with family and friends who had helped her. Father Matt, who had blessed Rennie’s coffin in April, now blessed each room of the house with holy water. Andrea Lynne had him bless each cross, too. There was one on almost every wall in the house, since she had begun collecting them immediately after Rennie died.
Roland came to the party but left early, too shy to stay with the other visitors. He was becoming an indispensable part of Andrea Lynne’s life, though. A confirmed bachelor, he was a big, attractive man of few words. Dark haired and dark skinned, Roland was broad and muscular, but different from Rennie. Roland was naturally strong; he never worked out. He and Rennie had met at Bragg’s youth center when they were in middle school. Roland’s father, now deceased, had been a soldier, too, and his mother, who still lived in Fayetteville and whom Roland looked after, was Japanese. Some people found him intimidating, but Andrea Lynne’s kids were comfortable with him, and he seemed to know how to clean up, feed children, and help her out. She never had to ask; Roland just volunteered. And he showed concern about Andrea Lynne’s diabetes, making sure she rested and ate. When she asked him about that, he said, “Rennie told me. He worried about you.”
He had taken a week off work to help her get settled in the house. He organized the garage and picked up on little things Andrea Lynne needed, like a gate for the deck, or a cat door. He set up her entertainment center, moved her furniture, reversed the door on her refrigerator, and even came and unclogged a toilet. He taught the kids how to drive. Soon Andrea Lynne was relying on him for advice.
By Christmastime, Roland would come over two and three nights a week with fast food for the children. After the youngsters went to bed, he would stay and talk with Andrea Lynne over a whiskey or two in the kitchen.
She told him how helpless she felt, as though she couldn’t do anything. She had been severed from her soul mate and life partner and was lost without him. There were things her well-intentioned friends and the Army couldn’t fix. She needed Rennie. Roland never said much, but he was good company. And he reassured her about Rennie.
“Never doubt Rennie’s love,” he said. “I knew Rennie most of his life, and his future was clear from the moment you met. Look how fast he married you. You two were what I measured my own relationships by. Not just me, many of Rennie’s friends … we’re all unmarried to this day!” It made Andrea Lynne laugh.
The evening always ended with Andrea Lynne falling asleep on the couch as Roland covered her with a blanket and locked up before he left. One evening, though, just before Christmas, as she drifted off to sleep, Andrea Lynne found herself wondering, Does he care for me? Do I want him to?
Delores was still in her bathrobe in the early afternoon when the doorbell rang. It was a week before Christmas, and she had just taken another batch of chocolate chip cookies for Gary Shane out of the oven. She was never in her robe this late, but she’d been baking all day. The aroma in the house could attest to that.
As Ski answered the door, she darted upstairs to change. Thomas Capel, the command sergeant major for the 504th’s 1st Battalion, and his wife Marissa, who was also in the Army, had come by to pick up the cookies. He was on his way to visit his soldiers from Delta Company in Kosovo, and he would be close enough to stop and see Gary Shane, who was now a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) gunner in Alpha Company 1st Battalion of the 32nd Infantry Regiment at Camp Magrath, thirty miles east of the provincial capital, Pristina. Capel was a good friend of the Kalinofskis. He had known their son since the boy was eleven.
“Wow, I never got cookies! This must be one special private,” teased Capel, who always wore a smile, no matter the occasion.
Delores had come back downstairs and was packing Gary Shane’s cookies in a large Christmas tin. She also put part of the batch into a huge coffee can for the other soldiers in the platoon.
“Oh, my gosh, well it’s a good thing that I’ve got a bag of cookies just for you, for your plane ride,”
Delores said. “And, Thomas, if you don’t mind, I have another package, too.” Inside that one Delores had carefully packed items she and Ski had bought at Sears—thermal underwear, leather gloves and inserts, Chap Stick, hand lotion, toothbrush, floss, hand sanitizer, Kleenex, and several pairs of Wigwam socks that kept feet dry and warm in extreme temperatures. And as she did with every package, she tucked in sandwich bags filled with iced animal crackers, Gary Shane’s favorite.
This wasn’t Gary Shane’s first Christmas package from her. Delores had already mailed a forty-pound box of toiletries, snacks, thick black boot socks, underwear, brown jockeys and 100 percent cotton T-shirts, a sleep shirt, Gore-Tex gloves, a fifty-dollar gift certificate to use in the PX, and a Christmas card.
Gary Shane had been in Kosovo since November, and the terrorist attacks remained fresh in everyone’s minds on post, but Ski had still not heard if he himself was going anywhere. Although the 82nd had never been called up to help in New York, the Kalinofskis had had their own up-close look at the devastation there. On October 11 they had driven the 566 miles in a rented Cadillac to attend a memorial service for a thirty-eight-year-old police officer and former 82nd paratrooper. Ski was the division’s representative at the memorial.
It was the Kalinofskis’ first time to New York City, and they were struck not only by the city but also by the sadness all around them. Everywhere they noticed thousands of photos of missing loved ones, and during a VIP tour and briefing at Ground Zero, they saw lists of names posted on boards, folded flags to be given at memorials, weary-eyed workers, search dogs with bloodied paws, and bulldozers sifting for remains through rubble that still burned at one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Delores knew that all the dust they were walking in—dust that made their nostrils dry and their eyes burn—was mixed with the ashes of human remains.
“Oh, no, Dad, Mom is crying again,” Cherish had said as they toured Ground Zero in their hard hats.
“I’m just a weeping willow,” Delores answered, still dabbing at her eyes, but she realized then just how blessed she was. It was an experience she would never forget.
In the early afternoon on a rainy Christmas Eve, before the Kalinofskis headed to five o’clock mass at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church, Gary Shane and Capel called from Kosovo.
Delores knew right away that her son wasn’t well, though he didn’t say a word about it. “Honey, are you sick?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a cold.”
“Did you get anything from the doctor?”
“I’m okay, Mom.”
“We love and miss you so much. I hope you enjoyed the package. I hope everything fit.”
“They did. Command Sergeant Major Capel delivered everything in person.” There was nothing quite like a familiar face when you were far from home.
The two talked for twenty minutes, then Capel came back on the phone. Finally, it was time to say good-bye to Gary Shane.
“I love you so much, son. Take care of your head cold. God bless you, angel. I love you, good-bye.”
Capel, who had access to a phone in the unit’s tactical operations center, took Gary Shane there again the following day to call home on Christmas. Delores was in her glory.
Rita had just turned on the Christmas lights when she heard Brian unlocking the front door. She rushed down the hallway and wrapped her arms around him. She had grown used to the hard bulkiness of her husband’s lime green cast, the result of his flipping his buddy Charlie down on his right hand during hand-to-hand combatives instruction in November. It was now December 24, and Rita had already fed the boys a supper of hot dogs and fries. When Brian wasn’t around, which seemed to be more and more often, she didn’t cook a big meal.
Like last year, Brian was again on DRF-1, but September 11 had changed everything. Because of the heightened risk of a terrorist attack over Christmas, Brian’s unit had been on lockdown at the barracks all week. Wives were allowed to drop off meals each night, and Rita went faithfully, bringing Brian’s favorites, like fried chicken and collard greens or cube steak and potatoes. Commanders had given the soldiers Christmas Eve off, but Brian would have to return to Fort Bragg the following afternoon.
Meanwhile rumors continued to swirl around everyone on DRF-1. I heard they were leaving next week … . Something’s gonna come down today … . Oh, God, I’m gonna bring him dinner, and then he’ll be gone … . As long as he’s here for Christmas, Rita kept telling herself.
Rita wanted to put all the stress of the last few months aside. She had a lot to be thankful for. She was doing well in school, and she and Brian were getting a handle on their finances. Every time Rita looked at families new to the unit, she remembered how much she and Brian had struggled the previous Christmas. This year they could even help other couples out. She gave John’s car seat away; he now used a booster seat. She also gave two trash bags of baby clothes away to Jenna, who had a toddler. When Sherry told her about a young private’s wife who couldn’t afford to buy her baby anything, Rita bought the five-month-old girl formula and diapers and helped get the mother on WIC. Just because the couple wasn’t good with money didn’t mean the child should suffer.
Junior enlisted soldiers sometimes get into financial trouble because of their own irresponsibility, guzzling down their paychecks at Fat Daddy’s or buying souped-up trucks with megawatt two-thousand-dollar stereo systems. Those with families try harder, but debts from their single days stick to them like camouflage face paint. Often a private’s paycheck just doesn’t stretch far enough with a wife and new baby.
Politicians and the Army brass never talk much about soldiers who rely on food stamps. It is somehow unpatriotic and un-American to have the fittest warriors in the world unable to afford baby formula. Usually company first sergeants take care of their own, holding canned-food drives in their motor pools, collecting dollars and spare change, and buying groceries over their lunch breaks, then discreetly delivering them to soldiers too proud to ask for a handout. It’s hard to believe there are young couples scraping to make ends meet on the same post as the families at the other end of Bragg’s economic ladder.
Yet that was brought home to me one winter afternoon when, as part of a story, I climbed a wobbly ceiling ladder up into the belfry of the church where I attend mass on post. The 82nd Airborne Division Memorial Chapel on the corner of Ardennes Street and Bastogne Drive has etched stained glass that commemorates Normandy, Nijmegen, Salerno, Sicily, and the Battle of the Bulge, the division’s great battle campaigns. Though the parishioners at Sunday services do not know it, the chaplains stock the belfry from floor to ceiling with donated cans of soup, SpaghettiOs, green beans, Gerber applesauce, and boxes of Hamburger Helper to help families in a bind.
That day I found out that chapels all over post use the bell towers or fellowship halls as food lockers to help hundreds of families who access the pantries so often that they run bare five times a year, especially before the holidays. The food is donated from soldiers’ canned-food drives and Army associations. Mostly young wives with kids trailing behind them like ducklings climb the ladder and take whatever they need to tide them over for the week.
Before I climbed back down, Chaplain Terry Austin insisted I take something for a snack despite my protests. He reached for a dented can of Chef Boyardee, took out his pen, and marked a cross on the label in black ink before handing the can to me. Food handouts and donated toys, holiday china and crystal. It was a reminder to me that Christmas on an Army post comes in many shades of Army green.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The telephone jostled Delores awake, and she dived across the California-king-size bed to answer it. It was 5:00 A.M., Monday, March 4. As in most Fort Bragg households, the phone was on her spouse’s side of the bed.
“Hello?” she said sleepily.
“Honey, you’ll never believe who I have on the phone; hang on.” And with that Ski handed the phone to his son.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Oh my gosh, Gary Shane! How are you, so
n?” It was the first time Delores had talked with him since his twenty-first birthday a month earlier. The connection was surprisingly clear.
“I’m doing fine, Mom; everything’s great.”
In the background Delores could hear men laughing and talking. Ski had arrived in Kosovo the day before. He and Colonel John Campbell would be there for a week, checking on the soldiers from Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, who were deployed for six months in the village of Klokot. Ski had spent the morning looking at TCPs (traffic control points) in the area. Since Delta Company was only five miles away from Gary Shane at Camp Magrath, he’d come to see his son.
“Are you having a good time with your dad?” Delores asked.
“Yeah, we just came from the mess hall. Dad got here around eleven.”
“I’m so happy you linked up. Did Dad give you your package?” Delores had sent a padded envelope with a teddy bear card, snacks, and, of course, iced animal crackers. She had also tucked in a Mad magazine and a Low Rider issue, a belated birthday gift for Gary Shane from some friends.
“You’re getting another one. I’ll be sending a huge package in a few days. And an e-card on Saint Patrick’s Day.” Gary Shane got so many letters and packages from his mom that soldiers had begun calling mail call “Kali call.”
“I wish moms could fly to Kosovo, too,” Delores added. “I miss you sooo much.”
They spoke for half an hour, with Gary Shane laughing and joking much of the time. After they hung up, Ski gave his son one of his sly smiles.
“You made her happy. You know how she is.”
Ski had met his son for an early lunch. He hadn’t seen his boy in more than a year, and the sight of him now in BDUs—the same uniform Ski was wearing—with the same last name KALINOFSKI stitched above the right breast pocket, startled the command sergeant major a bit. He was amazed and honored to see his son in this environment: He was a soldier. But he was still the same smiling little Gary. Though the boy had never worn braces, he had perfectly straight, bright white teeth. A million-dollar smile, Delores liked to say, that didn’t cost a million.