It Could Have Been MY Husband.....

Yesterday, I received some terrible news that no military wife wants to hear -- "Blackhawk down!" It seems that a Blackhawk helicopter crew from Kentucky was doing some training in the mountains west of where I live. They ran into some trouble and sadly, crashed....rolling down the mountainside. From the crew of four, three are confirmed dead and the fourth is not expected to survive. While we don't know the identities yet, we are still waiting, holding our breaths to see if any of the crew members was someone that we knew. (UPDATE: The fourth crew member was pronounced DOA at the hospital - so now all four crew members have died in the crash.)

It could have been my husband.

Last night, after My Marine got home, I allowed myself to sit in the quiet dark of our living room and let loose the tears that I had been holding in all day. While I was able to get a hold of My Marine as soon as I heard of the crash - which allowed the knot in my stomach to unwind a bit - I knew that somewhere in Kentucky, someone was walking up and ringing the doorbell of an unsuspecting wife. That everything she knew to be safe and calm and normal would be turned upside down in one single instant with just a single phrase - "We're sorry to inform you....."

I haven't felt that terrified since My Marine was in Iraq. One morning, I got up early and saw on the news that a Blackhawk had crashed in Iraq, but there was no information about the unit, where the crash was, or injuries. I immediately checked my computer for an email or to see if My Marine was online (something we normally did during those early morning hours, my time.) He wasn't on and there was no email from him. I tried not to panic. I immediately called our FRG (Family Readiness Group) leader and left her a voice mail asking her if she had heard anything, then next called my good friend to see if she had heard from her husband. Over the next half hour, my phone rang off the hook....but no one knew anything. I still hadn't gotten any word from My Marine and I was starting to panic. Fortunately, my parents were staying with me at the time. My dad was up when I got the news of the crash and I told him what I knew - which wasn't much. For the next 6 hours, I cried, panicked, and prayed. Every time a car drove by on my street I wondered if it was the notification team coming to tell me something about my husband. When the doorbell rang, I looked at my dad and couldn't move. I couldn't answer the door. I wanted to maintain those last few minutes of a normal life -- in case it was the chaplain. It only turned out to be the mailman. My sweet mailman who would hand-deliver my mail to the door during the whole deployment just so he could check on me and Nani. He had heard about the crash too and wanted to see if I knew anything or if I was ok. I looked at him through teary eyes and told him - just don't ring the doorbell again. He looked like I slapped him and immediately apologized for being so callous. I did manage a smile and told him that it was ok and from now on, just tap the front window. To this day, it's still our little signal that he's checking on me.

Anyway - an hour later, I heard the familiar "ding-dong" of my husband coming online and entering the chatroom that we had set up before he left. I practically flew up to the computer and cried tears of relief to see his name on the computer screen. His first words in our chat -- "It wasn't us....we're all ok." At that moment, I took the biggest breath of my life and said many prayers of thanks for his safety.

Last night - all those feelings came flooding back again when I heard about this crash. And I know I'm going to have to face these fears again when he deploys again. I know that there is an element of danger to what he does. I don't think about it every single day. I can't or else I'd go insane. But it's cases like this where I have to stop and think and say that extra prayer to God and My Marine's Guardian Angel for keeping him safe and for guiding the pilots to do their jobs well.

It's the only thing that I can do.