In 2003-2004, my husband, Tim, lived in Arkansas with his first wife and two-year-old son, and he was deployed to Iraq for 12 months. In 2003-2004, I lived in Florida and had a boyfriend-turned-fiance who was stationed in Germany, and he deployed to Iraq. Based on location and jobs, it is highly possible their paths crossed in Iraq, but we will never know. They both made it through their deployments without a physical scratch on their bodies. Tim returned home after his deployment to find his marriage had failed while he was away. My fiancé was transferred back stateside, and a year later our relationship failed. I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Tim was a helicopter pilot and the Commander of the Counterdrug Aviation Division for the Arkansas Army National Guard.
On August 9, 2006, he was flying a counterdrug mission in Northwest Arkansas. His engine failed, and he plummeted 800 feet to the ground. After a year in Iraq without a scratch, he now was facing death from a mission in Arkansas with shattered and compressed vertebrae. Luckily, his extreme musculature protected him from fatal damage. He was flown to a hospital in Fayetteville, and a friend of mine who was also on the mission planned to fly over to visit him. He asked me to pick him up from the airport and take him to the hospital. I was warned before entering his room that he had not yet been told that he would never walk again. He seemed in good spirits as we went in his room, but the load of pain medications they had him on were probably to credit. He was very sweet, fun and flirtatious. I left his room that day with the belief that this poor 36-year-old big, muscular, athletic, tough guy would never walk again. My heart was broken for him. But my heart was also very interested in him. I asked about him, but my friend informed me that he was dating somebody. So I did not go back to visit him. I thought about him quite often over the next 3 years, assuming he was married and learning how to handle life in a wheelchair.
In May of 2009 one of my clients told me that she would like for me to meet her best friend’s brother. She said that we had so much in common, but he could no longer do many of the activities he once enjoyed because he was in a helicopter crash in 2006 that broke his back and left him with severe nerve damage. The more she talked, the more I realized that was the guy I visited in the hospital. I was immediately interested in meeting him again.
When we first met I was amazed at how well he got around. He could walk! In fact, other than a slight limp, some muscle atrophy and his scars, you could not tell he had been in such a horrible crash. I could tell he pushed to do things he once did because he was determined to still do them. At that point, though, I didn’t realize what a challenge it was for him.
In less than three months we were engaged. We both had known from that first weekend that we were meant for each other. As I planned the wedding, he was transferred to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, to their Warrior Transition Unit to process his disability retirement from the military. After our dream wedding and honeymoon he had to return back to Oklahoma to finish his retirement process. Nearly two months after we married, he got to come home and for the first time since we had known each other, we not only lived in the same house but actually lived in the same town. That was when I began to realize what my husband experiences on a daily basis.
He would get out and mow our yard in the morning. By the time I came home from work, though, he was on the couch unable to move without a tremendous amount of pain. He would sleep that night and still be in bed when I left for work the next morning. When I came home for lunch he was lucky to have made it to the couch. He would spend all day in too much pain to function with any normalcy. The next day would be better, so he would get out and wash his truck. That would knock him down for another day or two. All the activities that I saw him perform when we were living in separate towns, I thought he could do with just a little push. What I did not see when I would leave to go back to my home was that he could not function after those activities.
My husband is my hero. He gives it his all in everything he does. He pushes through the pain for as long as he can bare it. He tries to not let others see his pain and struggles. He is too proud, and he does not look for sympathy. He is the toughest man I know. Although he does take strong narcotics on a daily basis to help him cope with the pain, he always tries to take the least amount he can take and still function. He pushes, he strives and he never gives up.
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