A letter from Kirsten McNeal’s husband told her what flying over Iraq meant to him.
“I am finally doing something more important than all of us,” Navy Lt. Allen McNeal wrote to his wife from a base somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.
“It is a good mission that really helps our soldiers on the ground, and I will be saving lives as well as taking them.” the pilot wrote. “I want you to be proud of me.”
Kirsten McNeal is proud and a little scared.
When her husband left for the Mediterranean at the end of January, she didn’t know that he would be in a war. It was supposed to be one more routine deployment.
As a pilot aboard P-3 Orion aircraft – the Navy’s slow, water-watching planes that once hunted Soviet submarines – Lt. McNeal had a job on the sidelines, his wife thought.
“It just never occurred to me that he would ever be involved in this,” she said.
She was wrong.
Flying eyes
The military is using the Orion’s state-of-the-art surveillance gear as eyes for coalition ground forces. The planes are merely scanning the earth instead of the oceans.
It’s a role the families of Patrol and Reconnaissance Squadron Eight learned on April 1. That’s when the squadron’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Jeff McKenzie, sent each family an e-mail. The air crews were flying missions over Iraq, he said.
The squadron, based at Brunswick Naval Air Station, has more than 400 members. Their families live in towns across southern Maine.
For some, such as McNeal, the e-mail came as a shock.
“It was honestly the first time since I met my husband that I was scared,” said McNeal, who lives in Bowdoin.
Other wives said they were less surprised. Some have grown accustomed to the six-month separations and the sudden responsibility of running households alone. They know that their husbands are active duty members of the military.
Meanwhile, the Navy talks of “potential” roles, threats and fights.
“The word ‘potential’ should be a normal part of your vocabulary,” said Rachel Diver, whose husband, Chief Petty Officer Tony Diver Sr., is a flight engineer aboard the planes. “Nothing is certain. You kind of understand that.”
Kirsten knows, too. It frightens her.
Bittersweet
“Allen’s in the middle of the fighting,” she said. He told her in a letter she received Wednesday, 10 days after it was written. There is danger, she learned, maybe more than some spouses know.
“I am going off for Iraq today,” Allen McNeal wrote to his wife. “We are flying missions over Iraq already. (An airman) has been shot at twice already and (another’s) crew almost bought the farm yesterday. I don’t tell you this so that you will worry. I am telling you because I want you to know that I am not afraid.
“I want you to know that if I don’t make it back that my last thoughts were of you and the children,” he wrote.
Whatever fear Kirsten has is tempered with pride. It’s a bittersweet letter. She knows her husband is well-trained. He wants to be there.
So does Diver’s husband. The second-generation flight engineer has served for 14 years and he takes his allegiance to his country seriously, said Rachel Diver. He’ll serve. He’ll do what he must.
And when he returns, he’ll be greeted by Rachel and their two children, Heather, 3, and Tony Jr., 5. They know their dad is “protecting the fleet,” and they know he’s gone for a while. Tony has served four deployments since his son was born.
Home front
Rachel tells new spouses to find something to take them out of their homes: Meet people and find an activity.
“Get out and do something,” she said. “Don’t be glued to the TV news.”
Kirsten watches in small bites. She’ll catch a headline or a few minutes on CNN, she said. Then, she puts it aside. It’s all too intense.
Besides, she has home to keep.
One-year-old Shannon was born during Allen’s last deployment. And she is expecting another child, a boy. His name is Connor.
He is due in August, the same time his dad is due home.
dhartill@sunjournal.com
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