Departure Time

Reservist and family spend day together as a way to prepare for goodbyes when he deploys to Fort Hood, Texas, then Iraq

By: By Migdalia Vazquez | Journal Reporter
Published: March 20, 2006

Holding back the tears and with her voice breaking, Sandy Bowen is learning how to be strong for her two sons and husband, Matt.
Army Capt. Matt Bowen was among 60 soldiers who gathered yesterday with their families at the U.S. Army Reserve Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive as a way of saying farewell to the more than half the reservists of the 1st Battalion, 485th Regiment 108th Division.
They will leave for Fort Hood in Texas on April 28 before traveling to Iraq in June.
For months, Sandy Bowen has known that her husband would soon leave for Iraq. She and Matt learned about the deployment Saturday.
The reservists and their families gathered on a day that coincided with the third anniversary of the Iraq war.
"I need to be strong for the children and Matt and not let him see me worry," Sandy Bowen said.
Nonetheless, she said, she is worried, more so now than when her husband spent four months in Kuwait before their son Sawyer was born six years ago.
She is angry sometimes and wonders why this is happening to her when everything has been going so well, she said.
"So many emotions go through me," she said, wiping tears from her eyes. "Why me? The anger of why do they have to send him away and how am I going to survive without him because no one by choice wants to be a single mom.
"It makes me sad and angry that it will change, to be without a husband and a daddy for the children for a long time," Sandy Bowen said.
"I'm scared about being a single mom, I'm scared about his safety, about my children without their daddy."
This time, she let the tears fall.
Sandy Bowen said she relies on the support that she gets from her friends, other military wives, her minister and her faith in God.
The separation will be longer than Bowen's tour with Kuwait in 1998; this mission will last 545 days, she said.
At Fort Hood, the reservists will spend time learning what Capt. Todd Fredette, their commanding officer, calls "theatre specific tasks," such as learning about Iraqi culture, becoming familiar with weapons and convoy operations, he said.
The reservists have full-time jobs. Some are teachers or business owners, such as Fredette, or pharmaceutical representatives, such as Bowen.
His decision to re-enlist came after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he said.
As a young boy, he wanted to be like his grandfather who served in the Navy during World War II and his father who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.
Bowen enlisted in 1994 after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He became an officer and left in 1999, and joined the reservists in 2003 after the war started, he said.
"I'm a soldier, and I love my country," he said, adding that once he knew he was going, the stress of not knowing was relieved.
It will be more difficult and painful for him to leave this time, but not just for his wife and sons, he said.
"I will miss everything, from changing the dirty diapers to scraped knees, to a beautiful smile when you walk in at the end of the day," Bowman said.
One thing sustains them - faith. Bowman said he prays with Sawyer every night. Faith will help them through the days and nights to come, he said.
The Bowens said they want one thing - for Matt Bowen to come home alive so they can be a family again.
"There are enough soldiers in the cemetery," he said.