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A 2009 Camry, in which she’s getting about 31 miles per gallon on the daily commute to and from downtown Fort Worth, replaced the two gas-gulpers. He didn’t buy a new truck; these days, his commute takes 24 hours and three flights. Since his work as a security contractor in Afghanistan won’t be finished until February — and there’s always the possibility that he’ll extend another six months or more — why make payments on a vehicle that no one is driving?
The reports of increased violence in his current environs are troublesome as she reads stories on the news wires that she can access at work. She long ago learned, though, that obsessing over his safety is wasted energy. He enjoys the work he’s doing, just as he loved his time as a municipal police officer taking on the dangerous assignments in undercover narcotics and the gang unit.
Heaven knows that our country needs more experienced and trained people willing to help the Afghans take control of their nation if the United States is ever going to bring everyone home.
The Taliban’s resurgence in the Kandahar area — where he spent his first two years in-country — is about 300 miles southwest of his Kabul quarters. His assignment on occasion takes him out to regional training centers and forward operating bases beyond the relative calm of the capital city. But that “relative calm,” to a veteran of the Vietnam War, presents its own set of concerns.
The Taliban have got what he calls “the big head” and seem to think they are going to kick some tail, he writes in a recent e-mail. Reminds him of the Viet Cong during the ‘68 Tet offensive. But in Kabul, the situation is quiet. He’d prefer that they make some noise so the good guys know where they are and what they’re doing.
That e-mail represents the extent to which he talks about his assignment. Their exchanges, which occur in real time during the first few hours after she gets into work, are mostly about the things that married couples talk about — kids, weather, health, friends and family.
The one time that she forgot to tell him in advance that she wouldn’t be in the office until the afternoon her time — the middle of the night for him — sent him into a panic, or as much of a panic as he ever exhibits. She wasn’t aware of the problem until she got a call from his best friend, who is the deputy police chief of the department from which he retired, asking if she was all right.
It’s an odd turn-around: He’s more worried about her in Fort Worth than she is about him in a war zone.
Their long-distance life isn’t unique these days. Thousands of American couples are wrestling with the challenges that separation by war bring.
When the two of them made their “for better or for worse” vows more than 16 years ago, they never imagined they’d be spending three of those years separated by half a world.
The strength needed to weather the unexpected steps in life’s journey comes from unshakeable trust in each other and faith in whatever God’s plan is for them — even if they can’t always see it in the here and now.
Contact Jill “J.R.” Labbe, deputy editorial page editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, via e-mail at jrlabbe@star-telegram.com.