Army Wife Read online

  Praise for Army Wife

  “Timeless, poignant, moving, and inspirational, Vicki Cody’s Army Wife reads like a can’t-put-it-down thriller. Having sent a husband and two sons to combat as Apache pilots, Vicki’s 33 years of marriage to Dick Cody and her selfless leadership as an Army spouse at every command level provide lessons in faith, endurance, love, marriage, and decision making. Army Wife should be required reading in every boardroom and classroom.”

  —A.J. Tata, national bestselling author of Three Minutes to Midnight

  “Army Wife is a unique—yet unsurprisingly common—perspective from a young wife ‘coming of age’ through the years, the fears, and a deepening faith. Deep within a culture all its own, the Army refines both the Soldier and the soldier’s family, and the reader is given a window into this world of strength—from the beginnings of young love, to the constant moves, the realities of death and mortality, the challenges of reintegration after deployments, the unknowns. It’s rare to have such personal insight from a wife’s perspective as she takes us on their journey through the Army ranks.”

  —Sharlene Hawkes, Miss America 1985, President of Remember My Service

  “Vicki Cody shares her life experiences with the grace and dignity befitting an Army spouse and mother of soldiers. The unsung heroes of America’s 21st-Century War finally get their long overdue day in the sun as Vicki takes readers on an Army family journey. Army Wife is a must read. The American people deserve to truly understand the commitment and sacrifice that all military spouses selflessly give.”

  —Jimmy Blackmon U.S. Army (Ret.) and author of Pale Horse: Hunting Terrorists and Commanding Heroes with the 101st Airborne Division

  Copyright © 2016 Vicki Cody

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2016

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-127-0 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-128-7 ebk

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935740

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1563 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

  Cover photo courtesy US Army

  Contents

  Prologue

  1: Burlington, Vermont

  2: Wedding-Bell Blues . . . and a Thing Called Deployment

  3: Educating Vicki, Brand-New Army Wife

  4: Sweet Home Alabama

  5: We’re Having a Baby . . . and a Short Tour, Too!

  6: Savannah, Georgia, 1979

  7: Life Takes a Sharp Turn

  Thoughts on Faith and Trust

  8: A Fork in the Road

  9: The Year We All Went to School

  10: A Rendezvous with Destiny

  Thoughts on Moving

  11: Summer 1990

  12: Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm

  Thoughts on Reintegration

  13: The Best Year of Our Lives

  Photo Insert

  14: Welcome to Texas, Y’all!

  15: A Time of Transition

  16: The First Star

  17: Washington, DC, 1999–2000

  Thoughts on Just Being Me

  18: A Final Rendezvous with Destiny

  19: September 11, 2001

  20: A New “Band of Brothers”

  Thoughts on Deployments

  21: Inside the E-Ring

  22: Operation Iraqi Freedom

  Thoughts on What Goes Around Comes Around

  23: A Fourth Star

  24: More Deployments

  Thoughts on the Nature of the Business

  25: The Last Chapter

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Fort Campbell, Kentucky, February 2004

  It is four in the morning, and a cold rain is falling at Campbell Army Airfield as I stand on the tarmac, juggling an umbrella and a handmade WELCOME HOME sign, trying to stay dry. I am in a crowd of hundreds of other families, all of us waiting for the chartered 747 that is bringing our soldiers home from combat. I can see tiny lights in the distance; it’s hard to tell how far out the plane is because of the darkness and the rain, but it looks like it’s on a long final approach.

  I’m thinking, Thank God he’s almost home!

  Both of our sons, serving in the same aviation brigade with the 101st Airborne Division, have been deployed to Iraq; the oldest one, Clint, has been gone for twelve months and will hopefully come in next week. Our youngest, Tyler, arriving on this plane, has been gone for six months.

  I am oblivious to the rain, to the cheering crowd, to everything except my husband on one side and our daughter-in-law on the other. I look at Brooke and am overcome with emotion for what she has been through this past year. She and Tyler had been married just three months when he left for Iraq. She is not only a newlywed but also a brand-new Army wife. An Army wife myself, I know exactly what she is feeling, for I, too, have experienced deployments as a young wife—though in a different war, a different time in history. But this time, as the mother of two soldiers, I’m in uncharted territory.

  Dick, my husband of almost thirty years, gray now, but still the handsome man I fell in love with so many years ago, is in uniform, just like his sons. And those stars on his beret . . . I can clearly remember when he had a gold lieutenant’s bar on a green field cap instead. I adore this man beside me—so stoic, yet I feel his excitement and see the emotion on his face and the pride in his eyes. We are soul mates and always have been. There’s never been a day in these past thirty years when I haven’t felt his love for me and he my love for him. We’ve become even closer these past couple of years, when he’s been “stuck” back at the Pentagon while his sons were deployed. It has been difficult for both of us, but especially for Dick, in part because as he moved up in rank and position and became the vice chief of staff of the Army, our sons, just beginning their careers, began deploying. To be not just the number-two guy in the Army, making decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of soldiers, but also the father of two of those soldiers, puts Dick in a tough position. Where he really wants to be is in the combat zone with all of them, flying an Apache helicopter, like he did in the first Gulf War. But that’s not meant to be this time. Instead, in this war, his sons are flying Apache helicopters in his old brigade in the legendary 101st. Even as Dick sits this one out, though, he knows that he and his two sons will be forever linked by the Screaming Eagle combat patch that each wears on the right shoulder of his uniform.

  I’m flooded with memories of standing on this tarmac, at this airfield. So many times, the boys and I waited here for their dad to return home. Now, I think, There’s nothing better than welcoming your husband home from war—nothing except welcoming your sons. It feels almost strange to have Dick by my side, waiting for the boys.

  The plane touches down, and the crowd erupts in cheers. Tyler and a few hundred soldiers are home safe, at last! Tears stream down my cheeks, and I wonder if the people around me can hear my heart pounding.

  We watch as the plane taxis toward us in slow motion. After what seems like an eternity, the soldiers start walking down the steps of the plane to the exuberant, flag-waving
crowd. Brooke and I stand on tiptoe to try to get a glimpse of Tyler. It takes forever, as he is toward the back of the plane. And then we see him! All I can think is, I don’t ever want to forget this feeling. It’s pure joy. Tyler is home, and in one more week Clint will be home and I will feel whole again, my family complete.

  The next minutes are chaos as families run up to greet their soldiers. We find Tyler in the crowd, and as I watch our son with his wife, I can’t help but feel blessed, wondering how we got so lucky. How did Dick and I manage to stay in love all these years, raise two wonderful sons, and never lose sight of what is important to us and what is important in life? We’ve been through a lot in our thirty years of marriage, yet I wouldn’t change a thing or trade places with anyone.

  So I begin my journey back in time, with the luxury of hindsight: to find out how and why my marriage and family have survived, when so many around me have failed. How did we make it through not only what life in general threw at us but also what Army life dumped on us? As a brand-new Army wife, heading to Hawaii to begin my life with Dick, I was so naive—not so much about marriage as about being married to a soldier and all that meant. Then again, aren’t we all naive when we’re young and in love?

  I had no idea how the Army would dictate and determine our fate, pull us in different directions, and test our relationship, over and over again. That it would be the source of some of our biggest stresses and fears and, at the same time, our greatest joys. That for all of the challenges we faced, we would experience great satisfaction; for every downside, we would find an upside; for every separation, there would be a reunion. Over time, I would learn to embrace Army life, with all of its unique qualities, idiosyncrasies, flaws, and difficulties, because those very things made me stronger as a wife, as a mother, and as a woman. It made us stronger as a couple and as a family. We would experience the adventures together, and on my own I would learn independence and self-discovery. I would learn to feel pride that I never knew was possible—pride in my husband, our sons, our Army, and our country. Army life would teach me not only how to live in the moment but also to cherish and relish the ordinary moments as much as the extraordinary ones. Army life—the people, the places, and the experiences—was what helped shape all four of us.

  It seems like only yesterday . . .

  1

  Burlington, Vermont

  The summer of 1969 was tumultuous and eventful for the United States. We put our first man on the moon. One of the newest teams in baseball, the New York Mets, was having its best season ever and was nicknamed the Miracle Mets as the team worked its way to winning the World Series. In Los Angeles, the gruesome murders of actress Sharon Tate and her friends dominated the headlines, and Charles Manson became a household name. The Vietnam War was escalating on the other side of the world, and the controversy over it seemed to be dividing our country. I didn’t really understand what the war was about; it seemed so far away from the peace and quiet of the Green Mountain State. I didn’t know anyone in the Army, and there were no military installations in Vermont, just the Vermont Air National Guard. There were also no twenty-four-hour news shows with instant coverage, and there was no Internet, so we Vermonters were somewhat sheltered from the ravages of the war; most of what I knew about it was what I heard my parents talking about or what I saw on the evening news.

  It was also a summer of peace, love, and rock ’n’ roll. That August, the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, New York, brought together the biggest names in the industry for four days of music, drugs, and sex, as an estimated five hundred thousand people converged on Max Yasgur’s farm. Anyone from the 1960s generation who remembers Woodstock will never forget the iconic phrase “The New York State Thruway is closed, man!” The shutdown of the major north–south artery between New England and New York City was a truly amazing feat and gave us all a visual on just how many people attempted to get to the festival. Woodstock became a symbol of the hippie culture that defined the music for my generation. But all of the big news stories that summer were a mere blip on my radar screen, because for me, the biggest event was meeting the guy whom I would love for the rest of my life.

  Burlington was a great place to grow up. Known for its winter sports, gorgeous fall foliage, Green Mountains, and beautiful Lake Champlain, it is the quintessential small New England city. At sixteen, I had just finished my sophomore year of high school, and my life was pretty simple. My world consisted of babysitting, going to my brother’s Little League baseball games, and hanging out at the beach with my best friend. Becky and I were inseparable and spent countless afternoons in her bedroom or mine. With the radio tuned to the Top 40 hits, we heard the 5th Dimension’s “The Age of Aquarius,” Zager and Evans’s “In the Year 2525,” and Barry McGuire’s sobering ballad, “Eve of Destruction.” We listened to any kind of music: the Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, the Grassroots, the Mamas & the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel; their songs served as the backdrop for our young and innocent lives. We tried on clothes, tested makeup and the latest shades of Revlon frosted lipstick, all the while discussing who was going out with whom, who had been kissed, and the various other sexual exploits of anyone we knew who had actually done anything. We pored over issues of Photoplay (the tabloid of the day), reading about Hollywood stars and the latest gossip and movie reviews. We thought we were worldly and sophisticated.

  I had gotten my driver’s license that year—a huge deal—and my braces removed, so, in my mind, I was mature enough for romance. Becky and I dreamed of finding the perfect boyfriend. I hadn’t had one yet—a couple of movie dates, a few crushes on boys from school, some make-out sessions with said boys, but nothing serious. I was hoping that would change.

  I had heard the name Dick Cody from my sister, Chris, and her boyfriend, Jim, who was Dick’s cousin. Dick was a superstar in Vermont high school sports—an All-American honorable mention in basketball who set scoring records in the state, and a West Point cadet who drove a new Corvette every summer when he came home on leave. And, according to Jim, he had tons of girlfriends. Dick was from Montpelier, about forty-five miles from Burlington, so I had never met him. Little did I know that I was about to come face-to-face with the legendary Dick Cody, and nothing could have prepared me for how I would feel about him.

  On the night of June 21, 1969, Chris and I were babysitting our younger brother, Dicky. Jim had gone out with his cousin, Dick, which was why Chris was home with me on a Saturday night. At about 10:30 p.m., we headed upstairs. We were lying in our white French provincial twin beds, talking. It was warm, and the windows were open.

  All of a sudden, we heard a very loud car pull into the driveway. We were out of our beds in seconds and scrambled into Dicky’s room, where we had a view of our driveway. Oh my God! There was this beautiful, shiny aquamarine Corvette, and out of the driver’s side emerged this hunk of a guy. I had to strain to get a good look at him: muscular body; short, dark hair; handsome face, from what I could see.

  Once we realized it was Jim and his famous cousin, Dick Cody, Chris and I tripped over each other trying to get back into our room to put some clothes on. We threw on cutoffs and T-shirts and bounded down the stairs and out the front door in seconds. I tried to be nonchalant during the introductions, but my heart was pounding and I felt something I had never felt before—weak in the knees. He was so good-looking! While Chris and Jim sat on the porch, talking, Dick stared at me. Because I was nervous, I picked up a basketball and started shooting on our garage hoop. What was I thinking, doing that in front of an All-American athlete? Thankfully, he put me out of my misery when he asked, “Do you want to go for a ride in my car?”

  Holy shit, do I want a ride in your car! I thought. But I simply replied, ever so calmly, “Sure.”

  It was one of those perfect summer evenings in Vermont. Dick had the T-top off the ’Vette, and we decided to drive the few blocks to the beach at Lake Champlain. He parked the car, and as we walked the path through the woods to the beach, it was almost pitch bl
ack. I said, “I can’t see where I’m going.”

  He took my hand and led me along, explaining that he had just finished his summer training at West Point’s Camp Buckner. “They taught us all these neat navigational skills and how to use the darkness. Don’t look back at the street lights; just look into the dark, and once your eyes adjust, you’ll be able to find your way.”

  My eyes did adjust, but I sure liked having him hold my hand. As we sat on the sand, the stars and the moon were so bright, I had no trouble seeing the young man sitting next to me. I thought he was the cutest guy I had ever seen, like a movie star right out of Photoplay. We chatted about Chris and Jim’s relationship, what grade I was in, just the usual small talk of two people who had just met. Then he leaned over and kissed me. I felt as if my insides were melting.

  When we stopped, he looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re really cute.” He was so smooth. I was so turned on by this guy who had walked into my life just thirty minutes before. Then he kissed me again and I wanted it to go on forever. Kissing Dick felt different from any kissing I had done with boys my age. I sensed right away that something important had just happened to me: I had met the man of my dreams.

  But my dreams would have to wait, as reality crept into my consciousness and I remembered my curfew. Suddenly, Dick and I both said at the same time, “We’d better go back.” My parents would be getting home soon, and I didn’t know how they would react to my going to the beach at night with someone they had never met, which was out of character for me. To this day I think about the randomness of that night and how fate changed the course of my life and Dick’s.

  He let me drive his car back to my parents’ house. My driver’s license was just six months old, and there I was, driving a Corvette. I could feel his eyes on me as I gripped the steering wheel and concentrated on the road. I don’t know what was more exciting to me at that point: Dick Cody or his Corvette. Either way, by the time we got to the house, the crush of the century had begun. But a popular song was playing in my head: Come back when you grow up, girl. You’re still livin’ in a paper doll world. . . . He had used the word cute; maybe I was too young for him. I convinced myself he would never call me. (Sure enough, whenever Dick later recounted the story of our first meeting, he said, “There was Vicki, in pigtails and on roller skates.” I wasn’t that young!)