Army couple is home after year of heat, worry
The husband and wife received permission to serve together.
SOMERVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- An Army couple who served together for a year in Iraq endured searing heat, nightly mortar attacks and constant worries for the other's safety.
Derek and Nicole Hartwell have been back at home for about a month in this community about 35 miles north of Cincinnati. But the news headlines and their experience with combat in Iraq keep their memories fresh.
"I both loved having her there and hated it," Derek Hartwell said. "At times, when we would be in the same vehicle, I would constantly wonder which side of the road the bomb would be on."
One day, Derek was riding in a convoy about 30 miles north of Baghdad when an angry mob of Iraqis surrounded his unit. The crowds began rocking his vehicle, reaching in to try to grab weapons and throwing rocks.
"We were completely cut off. All of us in the vehicle were saying goodbye. I can't express how scared I was," he said. "I truly thought it was all over."
So did his wife, who was in one of the forward trucks in the convoy. Word had come to her section that Derek's vehicle was lost and they were going to have to backtrack to try to recover the bodies.
"She was pretty hysterical when we did manage to get through and join the rest of the convoy," he said.
Got OK to serve together
Both enlisted right out of Talawanda High School in Oxford, after an Army recruiter visited the school. Derek went in first and Nicole followed later.
They dated during basic training and got married in August 2000. At the time they were sent to Iraq, both were attached to the 611th Engineer Co. in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville.
Nicole was notified in January 2003 that she would be going to Iraq. Her husband volunteered for Iraq duty so he could be with her. With help from his commanding officer, Derek received his orders for Iraq the following month.
"I consider getting that permission a major miracle," he said.
They were in the same platoon and saw each other daily, but military regulations prohibited them from living together.
Derek drove a tractor-trailer and his wife drove a Army vehicle called a Hemmett. Both carried M-16 rifles.
The unit lived in tents the first three months in temperatures that ran as high as 148 degrees.
"Picture yourself in long trousers, shirt, body armor and jacket and go into a sauna and stay there," he said.
Nicole said that for the first two months, "There were no communications going out or coming in. We couldn't contact our families."
Better conditions
Living conditions got better after three months, when the unit moved from tents into living containers, 7-by-14-foot boxlike residences with doors and windows. But, more important, they were air-conditioned and heated.
The Hartwells' original six-month tour of duty was extended to a year.
Being back home has been an adjustment after getting used to Iraq's temperatures, eating MRE's -- meals-ready-to-eat rations -- and withstanding nightly mortar attacks from often unseen attackers.
Nicole said she tries to avoid watching television news or reading newspaper articles about the war. But, she said: "Sometimes, going into a gas station, I'll see a newspaper headline about it and burst into tears."