Stage One. The Call, The Flight, The Warrior

Us in High School

            If you were to ask me three years ago where I would be right now and I would say, “In college far away from Sitka, trying to find love again, and hopefully not fat.” The only thing that remained correct in my prediction is that I didn’t gain the “Freshman Fifteen”. Never did I think that I would return to my hometown to go to school online, work full time, and reunite with my high school sweetheart who joined the Army right after graduation. If you told me that this is actually what would happen three years ago at the age of 18, I would have laughed at you and said “no, that won’t happen to me”. When I got back with Joe during his R&R in October, I knew that he would return to the deserts of Afghanistan for his second half of his deployment to protect us here at home, but NEVER did I expect the 5 am phone call.

            I knew what I was jumping into when I decided to rekindle Joe and I’s relationship, I KNEW that there was a possibility that he wouldn’t come back, I KNEW that there was a possibility that he would get hurt, but what I didn’t do was EXPECT it to happen. Expecting the worst would only make the wait that much harder and who wants the worst to happen? In October, I surprised Joe by flying across the country to New Jersey to see him during his R&R which was the best thing I have ever done with my life. I had spent two years away from him and spent the entire time thinking about him and how much I missed him. I had made HUGE mistakes during those two years, but for the sake of my blog, I will leave those out. The most important thing is that I found my TRUE LOVE again in the midst of complete chaos and war. The week I spent with him was exactly what I wanted it to be; I had finally found where I was supposed to be.

            January 10^th is not only the day I got the dreaded 5 am phone call, but is also my grandmother’s birthday. January 10^th is a day that I will remember my grandmother who I love dearly, but also the day that Joe survived. While Joe was away, my ringtone was set as Mine by Taylor Swift. Most of my 5 am calls were from Joe, due to the 12 ½ hour time difference between Afghanistan and Alaska, my most treasured calls were at dawn. The call I received at 5 am that morning wasn’t from Joe, but rather his sister Marissa (Missa). Seeing her name and not his made me automatically think the worst (just writing about it right now makes my heart remember what it was feeling at that very moment). I truthfully almost didn’t answer, but I did. Her voice explained it all to me, something VERY bad had happened. Her voice was trembling and her words were blending together. All I got from Missa was “something bad has happened”, “he lost half his leg”, and “I love you”. “Stay Strong Missa” is what I responded to her without a tear. What she doesn’t know is that once I hung up the phone, I broke down and cried my heart out. My mind was racing and my heart was pounding. What am I going to do? Am I going to get MY JOE back or a totally different Joe? I wish I was there with him NOW so that I could help him! And finally when I had somewhat gathered myself, I thought, what is the next step? I told myself, “Hillary, this is what you signed up for; you KNEW that this was a possibility, now you have to figure out what the next step is. JOE needs you to be strong right now and tears aren’t going to make his wounds heal or make his leg grow back.” Now, I like to make myself sound like a strong individual, but don’t let my words paint a picture of a rock-hard girl. I had moments where I fell on the floor and cried my eyes out, I had moments where I didn’t know what day it was, I had moments where all I did was stare out my office window at the snow-tipped peaks of Sitka and asked God “why US?” Joe doesn’t like to see me cry, he never has. So, when tears started to flow down my cheeks, I could hear him telling me, “No Tears. No Tears, Hillary.”After my many moments, I figured out that God must have known that he and I were strong enough to handle the toughest of times, God must have known that we love each other with all our hearts and can tackle this hardship that we have unwillingly been thrown into TOGETHER, God knows that we will come out of it even stronger individually and as a couple. I don’t consider myself a religious individual, but in these circumstances, why not talk about Him?

Us in Seaside Height, NJ

            After uncountable phone calls and a dozen different stories on what had happened in Afghanistan, I had gotten the real story on what had happened. While on a patrol, Joe was team-leader for his group. His fellow soldier, Tharp, had knelt down and hit the first IED. Joe ran to his aide and hit the second IED. Joe had multiple wounds on his back side, broken bones in his left foot, all four ligaments in his left knee were torn, he had a deep laceration to his left calf, his right femur was broken in 4 places, and his right leg was amputated 13 cm below his knee. Tharp also lost his right leg. Both warriors were transported to a medical center in Kandahar.

Before this situation, I know that I never really thought about fate, but someone special was looking over my Joe at this point in his life because THE FATES sent him the most amazing surprise. When we were freshman, we had a senior named JR Ancheta to come into our lives; at the time we didn’t know that JR would be our guardian angel. JR was in Kandahar, Afghanistan! OK, LET’S THINK. Sitka is a town of about 7000 people total. Our high school has around 400 people in it. We have 14 miles of road from end to end of our unknown island. Now, I am no mathematical expert, but I would love to know the likelihood of two small town boys meeting up with each other thousands of miles away from home in a war stricken country. Anyways… JR happened to go to the very medical center that Joe was at on that day; he was on a project to photograph the war with a Stryker Brigade from Fairbanks, Alaska. I had talked with JR when I found out that he was in Afghanistan, it was Christmastime, and told him he should try to see Joe while he was over there; he said that it was very UNLIKELY that he would be able to see him. He almost didn’t go in because he didn’t want to see so many people hurt, but he did, something pulled him in. At first, he went to see Tharp and told him he was from Alaska. Tharp’s reaction was “oh, the guy next to me is from Alaska (that being Joe). “ JR Ancheta,” Joe said slowly, “what the f*** are you doing in Afghanistan” (my honey is kind of a funny guy). My guardian angel, JR, took care of Joe for the rest of the day. All Joe wanted from JR before he got on the plane to a different medical center in Germany was to call me because he knew I would be “freaking out” and to “tell his story”. Joe couldn’t remember my phone number, but before he got on the plane, he managed to remember and gave it to JR.

The next morning, I got my call from JR. I broke into even more tears because I was so happy that God had sent JR to my love to care for him when I couldn’t. JR was a little concerned over how much I was crying and gave the phone to his colleague, Cheryl Hatch. Cheryl and I had a wonderful girl –to-girl talk and she gave me an overview of Joe and how he was doing. That girl-to-girl talk gave me so much more hope and gave me peace of mind because I knew that he was in good hands, the hands of good people like JR and Cheryl.

Joe made it to Germany, where THE FATES had sent me more guardian angels, my big cousin Tiffany and her husband Chris. Now, Tiffany and I haven’t been the closest and we grew up in the same state, but pretty far away (Alaska is pretty big…). Chris flies Apaches for the military and they are currently stationed in Germany. Tiffany had contacted me when she found out what happened to Joe and told me that she was a three hour drive away from the medical center where Joe was going and that she and Chris were going to drive up to see him. Again, the likelihood of the series of events that happened blows my mind, but anyways… Joe made it to Germany and he was able to meet my cousin and her husband. He was in the ICU, so they weren’t able to stay long, but they got to see him which gave me more peace of mind that he was ok and in even more good hands, this time in the hands of family even for a short amount of time.

Joe had to stay in Germany a little longer than Tharp because he had started to form blood clots in his lungs and flying wouldn’t be a good idea. In the meantime I was sitting and staring at my cell phone waiting for a call to set up tickets to fly east to see Joe at Walter Reed (the medical center). Minutes…Hours…Days… time could not have gone by slower. Joe was sent state-side and I was still in Alaska. I had many what the f*** moments, but I finally called the travel department to figure out what was going on. Joe had to sign paperwork saying that he wanted me to be by his bedside and until then they couldn’t get my tickets set up. Joe had been asking where I was and couldn’t figure out what was taking me so long to get there. More minutes, hours, and days passed and they finally called me at 5 am (I don’t know why everything happens at 5 am, but oh well). Living on an island has is ups and downs, a major down is trying to leave the d*** thing. Seattle happened to be in a major ice storm that week and the main hub of Alaska travel south is Seattle. So, I didn’t fly out the day they called, but rather the following day. My bags had already been packed a week before and I was ready to get off the rock. The weather is Sitka was gorgeous, but the weather in Ketchikan (a town south of us) was sucky. The storm from Seattle was moving north. I was hoping that we would just bypass Ketchikan and keep heading south, but we landed…and got stuck. Now, I don’t really play the “better safe than sorry game” while travelling, but under these circumstances, I wanted to play that game. I “knew” I was going to miss my connection in Seattle, so I called up Sneed (my travel guy) and had him change my tickets. The “better safe that sorry game” bit me in the butt as soon as I got off the plane in Seattle. The plane I was on… WAS MY CONNECTION (insert sad face here). I ended up staying in Seattle for 4 hours and catching a flight east at 11 pm.

Joe and I in Seaside Heights, NJ

I was smiling, a tear or two rolled down my cheek, and I smelled terrible when I landed in DC. I had been wearing the same clothes for over 24 hours and my makeup and hair looked like Snooki the morning after a hard night of partying, but at that point I didn’t care, all I wanted was to be with Joe. I ran to my baggage claim only to realize that my bags were going not only on a totally different route than I did, but to a totally different airport. So, I filed a report for my lost bag and hopped into the car that was there to pick me up.

The people that picked me up had to bring me to my hotel to check in even though I really didn’t care about checking in because I had no bags or shower equipment. I ran to my room, dropped some of my stuff off and ran back so that they could bring me to the hospital. The gal I was with was trying really hard to do things professionally and the right way, but all I wanted was to find Joe and get rid of her. We got to his floor and I booked it, I don’t know where she went, but I went running to find his room, # 458. AT LAST, I found my love. He was lying in bed and turned his head when I walked in and gave me a little smile. I didn’t look for his injured leg; all I wanted to see was his face. I don’t think I said a single word to him; I just walked to his side and gave him the biggest kiss I could without getting tangled in his plethora of tubes. I looked down and saw what remained of his right leg and told myself, “No Tears. No Tears, Hillary”.

Stage One in the Journey of Unexpecting the Unexpected.