|
Married to the MilitaryFamilies of Those in Service Learn They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Worry
By Phil McCombs
"Heroes have the whole Earth for their tomb."
Lisa's smart, sensitive, tough, a gorgeous redhead. When they'd slapped her butt with the flat of a sword when she left the West Point chapel as a new bride, telling her, "Welcome to the Army, Mrs. Rotte," she'd enjoyed it. She was 20. Minutes earlier,she'd surprised Randy, walking down the aisle toward his waiting smile -- and suddenly saluting. He returned the salute. He was 22, a new second lieutenant. She'd been at a Catholic women's college, and dating boys at the Point. They'd met in the autumn of '83, married in the spring of '85. Nothing prepared her for the life to come. "I was going to be an interior designer, marry when I was 35, maybe have a kid. Then I met Randy. When I married him, I had no idea what the military was. "I never thought he'd go to war." Never thought he'd one day be telling their little son about the dogs in Saudi Arabia eating dead Iraqi soldiers. Or that when he left for Korea their two daughters would collapse screaming for their father in the van while Lisa cried so hard she couldn't drive away for half an hour. That their 4-year-old daughter's hair would fall out from the stress. Or that even today, in peacetime, every time Randy takes off in his Black Hawk assault helicopter, she'd still get that familiar feeling. A gut-stab of dread. You can't help but wonder, sometimes, why they do it. America's military families are different from the rest of us. It's not just the separations -- expected and unexpected -- or moving to a new assignment every couple of years, or relatively low pay and long hours and mandatory weekend work or spit-shine "Yes sir or ma'am" discipline. It's something deeper, about living under the specter of death -- choosing Death as a member of the family, right there at the dinner table. For the ancient purpose of the Warrior is to slaughter the enemy, nothing more nor less. To be able to do this, to be constantly ready to do it -- and to have the support of one's family -- is to embrace a deeply Manichaean perspective, seeing Evil as a powerful force that must be opposed by Good. In the service of it, one pledges life, fortune and sacred honor. The rest of us need only remember this from time to time, when a crisis hits -- and sometimes never. Dear R.T., Randy wrote his son from Saudi Arabia in '91, two weeks before U.S. forces stormed into action in the Persian Gulf War: As your second birthday rolls around and it is apparent that we will not be able to spend it together, I find it important to write you and tell you some things that you need to know. . . . Someday, perhaps, you will be able to pull out this letter and comprehend. . . . I must start by telling you how proud I am to have you as my son. You never cease to amaze me when I see you on a video cassette. . . . But, because of events in this world of ours that are bigger than either you or me, I have not been able to share these last five months with you. . . . You see, R.T., there is a man who is the ruler of the country of Iraq who is a very bad man . . . so bad that he conquered one country and threatened many more with a huge army. . . . The United States, being the world's protector of human rights . . . could not just stand by . . . Meanwhile, at Fort Bliss in the Texas desert, Lisa had her own struggles -- raising their child, working a receptionist job to supplement Randy's $36,000 pay, smoothing the frazzled emotions of several dozen wives whose husbands served in Randy's command. "They looked to me as the troop commander's wife. I helped deliver two babies. I helped when someone's car was repossessed. One wife tried to kill herself and her three children . . . then called me." You don't just join the Army -- the whole family does. "Just tell them you don't want to go!" R.T., by then 9, had suggested in 1998 when Randy received orders for a year's "unaccompanied" tour in Korea, where Americans with tactical nuclear weapons face a million North Korean troops. Randy explained that being in the service meant following orders, even when it rips the family apart. And something more: Every morning when Lisa and Randy awake, they can see the words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur under a portrait of soldiers on their bedroom wall: "The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty-Honor-Country." And yet . . . Dimples, Lisa wrote Randy before he went into combat in the Gulf War, I need my best friend, my lover, my husband. I miss you so much. I ache for you every moment. . . . I cry to help relieve the emptiness inside me. I walk around as a half of a perfect whole -- in a daze. And: R.T. had a rough night last night. He cried out your name a lot. He needs you so much right now. In a way (a very small way) I hate the Army for taking you away at such a special time. And: Be safe! Be smart! Lead your men well! And: DON'T BE A HERO!!!
Answering the Call "Our men and women in uniform give America their best," President Bush declared to applause before a joint session of Congress Feb. 27, "and we owe them our support." He announced plans to improve pay and benefits while modernizing America's "defense vision." These are heartening words for Lisa and Randy Rotte (RO-tee) and the nation's 1.4 million military personnel and their families (52 percent of enlisted personnel are married, 71 percent of officers). They've felt squeezed by more family separations as a post-Cold War downsizing of 30 percent has been punctuated by the increasing demands of worldwide peacekeeping operations -- Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Korea. They've felt squeezed financially, too. Some 5,000 military families are on food stamps. A private first class makes $15,684 in base pay, a staff sergeant $24,552, a first lieutenant $31,440 -- plus various allowances and benefits, including medical care. Meanwhile, the civilian economy has boomed. The services are having trouble recruiting, and the Army is losing junior officers at such a rate that leadership positions may soon go unfilled; 11 percent of Army captains quit in a recent 12-month period. An Army Research Institute study found many junior officers now see service as incompatible with family life. Nor does it help morale when it seems -- as in recent weeks -- that one deadly military disaster follows another: the submarine accident off Hawaii, the National Guard plane crash in Georgia, this week's accidental bombing of "friendlies" in Kuwait by a Navy warplane. The Code of the Warrior seems counterintuitive in today's affluent, feel-good culture. Many Americans seem to believe wars can be fought without casualties, that "smart bombs" will get the job done "surgically," that "peacekeeping" invariably provides an efficacious substitute for lethal intervention. Military families must straddle these divergent cultures -- a schizoid feat requiring them to face realities most prefer to keep at a psychological remove.
Living on the Edge "It's crazy around here," Lisa admits as she washes dishes at home in Stafford County, Va., kisses Randy (just in from work at Fort Belvoir and wearing combat fatigues), and shouts, "Helena, get ready for gymnastics!" "Gymnastics?" wonders the blond 7-year-old. "I mean Brownies!" Lisa corrects. Gymnastics was earlier. Maryssa, 9, gets ready to go with them. After Brownies, they'll scoot to the school where Randy will be coaching R.T.'s team in a basketball game. This is a family on the go. Lisa also coaches Maryssa's basketball team, volunteers in the kids' classrooms and for the "Family Readiness Group" at Randy's unit, and works part time for a financial planning firm. After 8 o'clock Mass Sunday mornings, she and Randy both teach Bible class. "We're outta here!" Lisa exclaims. "Okay, big guy," Randy tells R.T., 12, who's watching TV, "I gotta go change into my sweats." R.T. seizes the opportunity to hold a mini-press conference: "I like having my dad in the Army. There are good times and bad times. You get to see different places. We move every two or three years. The bad part is, you get really close to friends, and then it all ends. "I'm not really thinking of an Army career because you move every two years and it would upset my kids a lot. I know how it feels." Randy, 38, is smiling, gentle and upbeat with the kids, openly affectionate with his 35-year-old wife. Their relationship still seems hot after 16 years of marriage; they hug and kiss in front of the kids, plan a Saturday-night date. You are my answer to all my prayers from day one, she'd e-mailed him in Korea. You're my soulmate and I will stop at nothing to honor, protect and love you for all eternity. I thank God for you every minute of every day. She'd signed it "Your Maniac." Their four-bedroom colonial in a new subdivision 40 miles south of Washington is immaculate. There's a family portrait (Randy in bemedaled uniform) in the living room, other family shots (his dad in uniform) on the TV, pictures and letters from military pals on the fridge, and -- on most walls -- prayers and blessings and romanticized military scenes by painter Don Stivers. One, prominent in the front hall, shows a Civil War couple's sad parting -- the uniformed warrior erect and resolute, wife with head on his chest and holding his sword. "Duty Calls" is the title. Maj. Randolph R. Rotte Jr. gets up at 5:30 a.m. weekday mornings and commutes to Davison Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir near the Beltway. He's executive officer -- the No. 2 -- of the 12th Aviation Battalion, running daily ops of the 220-person unit. Equipped with powerful Black Hawk helicopters and Vietnam-era Hueys, the 12th provides transport for Department of Defense VIPs in the area while remaining alert for "contingencies." Like terrorism. With jaunty, cheerful efficiency, Maj. Rotte routinely works 11-hour days -- holding staff meetings, bucking up morale (the officers quietly bring extra food to unit social events so lower-paid enlisted families can take it home), making sure the unit is ready for action. At home evenings and weekends, Randy's pace is, if anything, even more intense. Y'all are my whole world, not the Army, he'd e-mailed Lisa from Korea. I can't wait to be there every day for you and our children. I'll make it up to you over the next 50 years, I promise! And so, it would seem, he is. His military career has been charmed, too -- choice assignments, including a mid-'90s stint at West Point as a professor after the Army sent him to grad school in applied math, and -- soon now -- a chance for promotion to lieutenant colonel and possible command of one of the Army's Black Hawk battalions. These are not privates on food stamps. Maj. Rotte makes $90,036, including $57,372 in base pay, a $21,024 housing allowance, $1,560 "subsistence" for items like uniforms, and a $10,080 flight-pay bonus to keep him from leaving -- which he considered five years ago. And yet . . . In the warm family glow, in the perfect living room in the perfect neighborhood, with the kids chirping and laughing -- it would be easy to miss seeing the emotional fragility of their lives. This is the first house they've owned, after years of cramped quarters on dusty posts at lower pay. What I wouldn't give to own two decent cars, Lisa e-mailed him in Korea 2 1/2 years ago from Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where she was raising the kids alone while working two jobs -- preschool caregiver and secretary. Not in our Army career lifetime. I'll get the damn car fixed. I'm just tired, lonely, depressed, overworked. Why do . . . I have to work so much to keep us afloat financially? I see our [civilian] peers driving nicer cars, kids wearing better clothes, going out a lot, better furniture. They've been in this house less than a year and a half -- and may soon have to move. "I've applied for a Congressional Fellowship," Randy explains. "If I got that, we'd stay here. If not, it's possible we'd have to move this summer." "You wouldn't do that to us!" Lisa says, a pained snap to her voice. Later, Lisa reveals that she and the kids have talked about not going with Randy if he were given an overseas command, though in her heart she's determined that will never happen. "They were complaining they didn't want to move again," she explains to Randy, as the kids listen. "They were really upset because they have good friends here, they like the house." She'd asked them if it would be "worth it" to "not go with Daddy. All the kids said yes." "That's the first time I heard this," Randy says, surprised. He tries to smile. He doesn't quite pull it off.
Under the Volcano Randy grew up in Cincinnati hearing war stories from his dad, a salesman who'd served in World War II and Korea. In high school, he excelled at math and admired a teacher who'd decided not to go to the Point and regretted it. "For me as an 18-year-old, the military seemed pretty glamorous," Randy recalls -- though he "wasn't prepared for the feelings of having people order you around and the fact that your life is not your own." But he liked the challenge, got over his fears, and was soon graduating No. 17 in a class of more than a thousand and marrying the fiery Ms. Lisa Cebulski, oldest child in the sprawling family of a New York engineer who'd been drafted for Vietnam and left the service as soon as he could. Along the way, Randy accepted the idea of killing. "Everybody justifies it somehow. In the Bible, the Israelites were fighting battles that were okay. You demonize the enemy -- like Saddam. There are intelligent, righteous, spiritual people in the military." R.T. is beginning to ask moral questions. "We absolutely do not glorify or romanticize it," Randy says. "We explain that killing's a terrible thing, but sometimes has to be done in defense of our country and what we believe." Personally, he finds his career "rewarding and fulfilling," pointing to polls that show Americans hold military service in high esteem, "up there with the clergy." Randy was drawn to aviation and, after graduating from West Point, "I wanted Black Hawks and I wanted Germany." He got both. In 1986, after officers' basic and flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala. (where Lisa worked as a waitress and a motel maid), they went to help face down Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces as the Cold War waned. At Fort Rucker, Lisa's adjustment to military life had been swift and shocking. She was given an officers' wives basic course -- learning about rank, how to dress properly, give coffees, and "take care of the wives whose husbands work for your husband." She also realized for the first time how dangerous it is to fly military helicopters. "They told us, 'You want to keep your husband's life as stress-free as possible when he's flying.' If there's a stressful family situation, if it can wait, they don't need to know." They were told: Never part on an angry note. Friends have died when Black Hawks went down. The headlines tell the tale: "Black Hawk Army Copter Crashes; 7 Dead in Ky." (1999); "Two Military Wives Killed in Crash of Black Hawk Helicopter" (1998); "Army Helicopter Crash in North Carolina Kills Eight" (1997). In Germany, a Black Hawk in Randy's platoon crash-landed after the tail rotor drive shaft broke. Miraculously, everyone survived without injury. Though they remember Germany as a rich cultural experience, Lisa says, "You think you ever see him? They're gone all the time, weekends, holidays -- alerts, 30-day maneuvers. They're working 14- to 16-hour days. You can't plan a vacation. They don't have a lot of energy to spend on you." They squabbled, made up, grew -- and, unlike many military marriages (lawyers reported that divorce rates soared near military installations after the Gulf War), their relationship, in Lisa's words, "survived and thrived." R.T. had been born their last year in Germany, and Randy made captain. As the family grew, the moves -- eight in 16 years, with Randy overseas alone twice -- became more involved. At one point, with Randy in staff school at Leavenworth, Lisa, moving herself to Troy, N.Y., with R.T. and the 5-month-old Maryssa, discovered that the infant had a serious heart problem that an Army doctor's diagnosis had missed. Surgery by civilian doctors a year later saddled the family with big medical bills. By the time of the surgery, Lisa was pregnant with Helena and working nights and weekends at Macy's to help meet the unexpected expenses. It was then Randy began looking at civilian jobs -- but their lives settled down, and they stuck. Randy didn't return from Korea till mid-'99, and Lisa had waited with the kids in their modest Army house on Leavenworth, working to make a down payment for the Virginia place (Randy already had orders for Belvoir). "It was terrible," she remembers. "Maryssa was doing poorly in school. R.T. was feeling the pressure of being the only man in the house. Helena started losing her hair and throwing fits, doing very bizarre things. They all missed him." One day, Helena cut off what hair she had left. Now they're in Virginia -- with Death still at the dinner table. After six soldiers died Feb. 13 in a crash of two Army Black Hawks on night maneuvers in Hawaii, Randy turned to Lisa and said: "Oh my gosh, we know this guy." One night recently, Randy was late getting home. "Oh," Lisa explained over the phone with preternatural calm, "he's out flying some generals around West Virginia. He's missing a good dinner!" You could hear the tension in her voice. Like a drive shaft about to snap.
Not to Reason Why It's a little before dawn: The hangar lights cast a bright glow. Maj. Rotte strides across the tarmac toward the Black Hawk. He will pick up a French general in Norfolk, fly him to the Pentagon, then take some colonels north. "Don't worry," he tells passengers with a sparkle of excitement, "I've been doing this for 16 years." He's wearing a green flight suit and a "survival vest" that includes a first aid kit and whistle. His dog tags are on a chain around his neck with a cross. He's already checked the chopper, climbing on top to inspect engine and rotor. He's confirmed the mission plan, marked maps, checked weather. There's fog up north -- not good for a chopper, which doesn't carry much fuel and dares not approach the ground in fog. In Saudi Arabia, sand had been a problem -- chewed up the engines; often you couldn't see to land. He loves flying Black Hawks, but "about five percent of the time you land and say to yourself, 'They can't pay me enough to go up in one of these things again.' " Five percent is a lot. On a night maneuver, loaded with combat troops and under time pressure with no lights on the birds or the ground, you're flying blind. You can use night vision goggles, which magnify ambient light, but instead of 180 degrees of peripheral vision you've got only 40 and must move your head to see choppers nearby. It doesn't look too bad today, though. Maj. Rotte and Chief Warrant Officer Four James P. Mallory, the other pilot, strap in, rev up and begin their checks. Still, this isn't the Delta Shuttle: As crew chief Sgt. Richard McKee briefs passengers, he says that in the event of a crash and fire, if "the crew is incapacitated, we ask that you get us out." McKee isn't kidding. The takeoff is smooth and powerful. Soon the Black Hawk is making 100 knots down the Potomac. "We're level at 4,000," Maj. Rotte says over the intercom. Sunrise floods the land in gold. The pilots chat about technicalities. Suddenly, Maj. Rotte says, "I heard something." They discuss, in the calm macho way of pilots, what might be wrong -- but can't figure it out. Then, silence. "Hell, I know what it is," Maj. Rotte says suddenly. "My door popped open!" "I'll take the controls," Mallory says. The Black Hawk slows to a hover. Maj. Rotte closes his door. The journey resumes. "So, Jim," Maj. Rotte says conversationally, "you ready to move offices in a couple weeks?"
To Do and Die On Feb. 16, when U.S. and British warplanes bombed antiaircraft sites around Baghdad in an escalation of hostilities, Lisa and Randy and the kids were awaiting a visit from her parents. They arrived, and everyone had a great weekend. Iraq was not mentioned. The life is bearable only, Lisa says later, because she holds fast to certain core beliefs. "There will never be a Vietnam or a Korea again. Our soldiers are well trained. They have the means to fight and destroy the enemy." She is sitting in a Ruby Tuesday's off I-95, picking at a salad. "Reagan and Bush made sure of that, and this new Bush will continue it. Anybody who screws with us, we're gonna kick their butt! I know Randy is well trained, and is training his men, and they will prevail." Blue eyes flashing. Even when he was in the Gulf War, Lisa claims she wasn't really worried. "Randy's unit was so well trained, oh my God!" Well, a little worried maybe: "I'm scared to death of what Saddam Hussein has built up without our being able to watch him. He scares the hell out of me. If it blew up, Randy would go." She's stopped trying to eat. "You have to have faith," she says finally. "We do have a good military, a bunch of good women and men. They're proud of what they do. Without them, we couldn't have the freedom and prosperity we have." She pauses, facing it calm and square: "If Randy dies, I'd rather he die in his aircraft than on I-95 commuting to some job in the District. "He loves the military. He loves his country."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company |
