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Donna M. Owens
Five years into the war, more than 775,000 American servicemen and women have served in Iraq, more than 4,000 of them have died, nearly 30,000 have been injured by roadside bomb blasts and other incidents. Hundreds of others—from civilian contractors to Iraqis—have lost their lives, according to U.S. Department of Defense data and other figures.
And just as Black women have served in past U.S. military conflicts dating back to the Civil War, they are engaged in this one, too. About 7,590 African-American women are “on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and other parts of the world in support of the global war on terror,” says Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk. The majority of them are in the Army, he notes.
They are pilots, surgeons, administrators, intelligence specialists, convoy drivers and more. Yet the voices of these women are rarely heard. Through interviews, e-mails and international phone calls from Iraq, four women spoke candidly about their motivations, fears, hopes and dreams—dreams that still do exist.
Ayanna Ayo Wiggins
"It's difficult to sleep at night. At 3:00 a.m.'
as a military spouse' I'm up thinking about
the what-if's of our future."
“It’s difficult to sleep at night. At 3:00 a.m.,
as a military spouse, I’m up thinking about
the what-if’s of our future.”
Atlanta native Ayanna Ayo Wiggins, 33, has been married almost ten years to Army Sgt. First Class Torrey Wiggins, who is serving in Iraq and may come home this summer. The couple has one son, 6-year-old Na’il. Now a freelance writer who works from home in Augusta, Georgia, Wiggins formerly worked as a civilian in the Army, editing a military publication. As she recounted her day-to-day struggle, her voice broke. At one point, she just cried. Being apart from her husband and remaining strong for her young son are the hardest things she has ever had to do, she says.
“I thought I was prepared for Torrey to leave, but I had a rude awakening the day before he was to depart for Iraq. Our military installation held a memorial service for a soldier who had been killed while training Iraqi soldiers—just like my husband would be doing. As I sat in the auditorium, I was filled with so much emotion watching a slide show of this person’s life: seeing his Army boots, weapon and dog tags onstage while ‘Taps’ played in the background. Worst of all was seeing his wife in the front row.
“A few days later, I bumped into the newly widowed spouse. I thought, God, are you trying to tell me something? I wanted to reach out to her, tell her about my husband and ask her . how to cope. But you don’t say these things or ask questions when a woman is walking down a hallway looking for the Casualty Assistance office. You simply nod your head and smile, all the while aching inside for her loss and the uncertainty of your own spouse’s future. When we dropped Torrey off at the airport we all cried. I was especially distressed watching my son, seeing my husband tell my son to ‘take care of mommy.’
“For the first few months I worked hard at willing back tears when people would ask, ‘So, how’s your husband doing?’ I could not answer without my eyes watering, especially when the people at church would ask.
“It’s hard when you want to cry but you withhold the tears because you don’t want your child to be alarmed or your spouse to worry during those short phone calls. You don’t want them to be sad because they see that you’re sad. So it’s like this: You hold the tears during the day because you’re trying to be productive. You make dinner, do homework, and when you finally get to bed, you hold the tears in some more. Regardless of how you feel inside, you have to get up and prepare for the day.
“During Torrey’s first six months in Iraq, he would always say things were ‘fine’ and weren’t ‘as bad as the media portrays’ them. But during a two-week visit home, he really broke down and shared with me his fears about what he was up against. He had escaped death a few weeks prior to coming home on leave and didn’t know what he’d be going back to. He wondered, ‘Will I see our son grow up? What will my son think of me?’ It was a crucial conversation and hard to absorb.
“So many times I’ve played this scene in my mind of military personnel showing up at our door to deliver bad news. I’m asking myself how would I explain to our 6-year-old son that Daddy—the man who gave him his first bath, the man who held him in his arms before I did—won’t be coming home, after always assuring him, ‘He’ll be home soon.’
“It’s difficult to sleep at night. At 3:00 a.m., as a military spouse, I’m up thinking about the what-if’s of our future. I’m wondering if my husband is safe while on foot patrol in Baghdad, while driving a Humvee through an Iraqi neighborhood, while training Iraqi soldiers, while sleeping in a tent at night. That, and who’s protecting him while he’s out there. Ultimately, I know that God is his protector, but it’s hard nonetheless.
“If I could stay off the CNN Web site, I probably would alleviate some stress. I find myself checking the site to make sure my husband’s name is not on the casualty list. I’m also looking at the fallen soldiers’ photos, thinking, When they took this picture, they didn’t know this would be their last.
“Every now and then when I’m having one of these moments, I’ll look out my bedroom window, right when the sun begins to come up. That, to me, is God’s light, reassuring me that He is right there even when I truly feel alone in this.”
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