Triumph and Tragedy

I woke to the sound of light tapping on my door. Most everyone is a light sleeper in a Combat Zone. To say I was ecstatic when I opened the door to see Melissa, would be an understatement. She was wearing just a t-shirt and a cute pair a pajama bottoms. She looked so sexy!

She ducked into my room and we kissed.

Thank God there were no Rocket or Mortar Attacks that night as it would have caused both of us to go running for a bunker out of MY room!

While we had fucked earlier that day, we were able to make passionate love to one another for several hours that night.

She left my room and headed to the bathrooms as no one could question her if they spotted her taking that route at this time of night.

I didn't see her the next day before she left.

We had decided that we would not communicate electronically as everything was being monitored for security reasons.

We promised one another that we would see each other when we could.

A few weeks later, I was outside in our compound, when I heard an explosion in the distance, a big one. It almost sounded like a 500 lbs. bomb detonating, but we had no action taking place in our area. We were the first Province to be handed over to Iraq control because things were so quiet there. I walked into the Tactical Operations Center, TOC, to see if they needed my help as I was a Liaison Officer to the Iraqi Government.

Radio traffic in the TOC soon confirmed that one of our patrols had been hit by a roadside bomb. Only one vehicle had been hit and there had been no follow on attack.

A little while later, the casualty report came over the radio. Lieutenant Melissa Lopez was dead, killed when the roadside bomb hit the HUMMW-V she was Commanding. The woman I was falling in love with was dead.

I remained calm, no one knew about our relationship. I couldn't say a thing. I couldn't grieve in public. I couldn't talk to anyone about my loss. I tried my best to keep my expression neutral.

There was nothing we could do, the Unit that was attacked was handling their own recovery and were moving on with their mission.

I went back to my room and felt sorry for myself.

Melissa was gone and I didn't even have a picture of her to remember her by.

I couldn't ask to go to the memorial that they were going to have for her as it would raise questions that I had no answers to at all. I had barely been able to go to memorials for guys that had died in my own Parent Unit as we were at a remote location. Asking to go to Melissa's Memorial would have looked extremely suspect at best and called our relationship into question at worst. I would have to grieve alone, in private.

The War went on, I took care of my Soldiers and got them home safe.

Orders came down and I was moved to a Training Team in the desert in California.

The Training Center was remote, so the chances for dating someone here was ridiculous. The closest town was Barstow and that place only contained the castoffs of Las Vegas. The other dating prospect was the wives of other Soldiers and I don't do that, ever.

I was into my second year at the training center and was at the coffee shop on Post, enjoying an expresso, when I saw a ghost!

A woman in uniform walked into the coffee shop and up to the counter to order. I first noticed that this woman looked just like Melissa. Her name tag said it was her, Lopez, she was a Captain now, but there was no way Melissa was alive.

I was out of uniform as it was my day off. I doubt she would recognize me, but this was all too weird and I had to take a chance.

I walked up to her as she stood, waiting for her coffee.

"Captain Lopez..." was all I got out.

"George!" The woman screamed and threw her arms around my neck. She almost strangled me. She kissed my cheek.

"We can't do this." I whispered to her.

"Yes, we can. You're out of uniform." She replied. She took my head in her hands and kissed me hard on the mouth. Her tongue poked against my lips and I let it into my mouth.

I kissed her and I could not believe my world was whole.

She stepped back and punched me in the shoulder.

"Why didn't you call me when we got back?" She asked, looking offended.

"I thought you were dead!" I replied, some of the pain of losing her returning. I'm sure it showed on my face.

"Oh, God! You poor thing. There were two Melissa Lopez in my Unit." She realized and hugged me tight. I held her close, never wanting to lose her again.

"So, yeah, I thought you were dead. I mourned you in private and have just been muddling through life since we got back. I got transferred here a few months after we returned." I explained as we held each other.

We walked over to my table after she got her coffee.

"When we got back I didn't hear from you, so I thought you had lost interest or maybe you thought the age thing was too big of an issue and gave up." Melissa started talking. We held hands and it was electric. "I was so confused because your whole thing is about communications." She leaned forward and softly kissed me on the lips. It was a lover's kiss that promised so much more.

"No, I honestly thought you were dead. There was no one to communicate with." I stated.

"Wow, just, wow! I feel so sorry for you." She said.

"I feel sorry for you. I'm grieving the loss of you and your grieving the loss of a relationship." I said.

"We are going to needs lots of therapy!" She said, laughing.

I burst into laughter and hugged her to me.

"Are you here with BLUFOR?" I asked. BLUFOR is the Unit coming to train at NTC.

"Yeah, I'm part of the Advanced Party for a rotation in two months." She explained.

"Oh, this is the best. You will have a few things to do each day and then we can spend the rest of our time together. This will be great!" I explained.

And that is what we did. We spent the next two weeks getting to know one another. By the end of the second week, we were engaged and I had spoken with her family in real-time over the internet.

We got really lucky a month later when a Supply Officer at NTC agreed to switch Units with Melissa. It was a good career move on his part because he had been stuck at NTC with no Combat Tours while Melissa had two. In future evaluations, this would reflect poorly on him, so he seized the opportunity to get a Combat Tour.

Melissa transferred to NTC two months later and we were married in Las Vegas a month after that. We had our families there and had a great time.

We supported each other throughout our careers and loved one another because we communicated effectively as we had learned to do in the course that had brought us together.

*************

Now for the Truth.

The names have obviously been changed as well as some of the places, but there were two Lieutenants that bore the same name in the sister Unit I was assigned to at the time. I had a brief encounter with one of these women and there was a spark between us. She did come back to my room and we talked for quite some time, but I didn't act on my feelings as I was in a relationship. She did mention the Class I taught and how it was brave of me to talk about my emotions and how she admired it. We parted ways and went about our business. A few months later, one of the Lieutenants died in the IED blast. I thought it was on the one I knew and I did experience the sense of loss I described in the story, there had been something between us. I did later see her at a coffee shop on Post and at the time thought she was still dead. Troubled, I sat down at a bench to collect my thoughts. I assumed that this woman just looked a lot like the Lieutenant and as previously stated, she had a very common name. I was not in a relationship at the time, but was so troubled I didn't talk to this woman because I thought the story would sound just too bizarre.

About a year after the event in the coffee shop, I was discussing the Lieutenant's death with someone that had been in the Unit and how I thought how attractive she had been. He smirked me and commented that he didn't know I liked dark girls. I replied, "What are you talking about? She's Hispanic." "No, that was the other Lieutenant XXXXX."

"Oh, wow," was all I could reply.

I went on line to check the memorial page that had been set up for all the Soldiers we had lost in the Tour and sure enough, it was the other Lieutenant XXXXX that had died all those years ago, sadly. My Lieutenant had survived unknown to me and I had seen her years later at the coffee shop!

The spark we had shared years before has gone, unheeded as we were unaware of each other's existence at one point and she was not aware that I was at the training base she was visiting.