Time to Rest

Fellow soldiers told Matt Bowen that it would be like this. That the two glorious weeks he spent at home with family and friends and football and chicken biscuits whenever he wanted would feel like a dream.

And sure enough, without breaking stride, he is back to the daily grind at Al Kasik, a small base in northern Iraq where he has spent the past several months teaching members of the Iraqi Army how to distribute food, fuel and other equipment to units in the field.

Matt Bowen, 35, is a captain with the 1st Battalion, 485th Regiment, 108th Division of the U.S. Army. His yearlong tour of Iraq started in mid-June. But he left his Forsyth County home two months earlier for training at Fort Hood, Texas.

His military obligation took him from Sandy, his wife of 13 years, and their two boys, Sawyer, 7, and Henry, 2.

Matt landed on American soil Dec. 9 to teach a class on training techniques to soldiers at Fort Riley, Kan.

Sandy, flying in from Greensboro, was in hot pursuit.

Almost-daily phone calls and e-mails kept them in touch, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to look deep into his eyes and see whether war had changed him.

Sandy knew that Matt had been in dangerous situations. In his first phone call to Sandy from Iraq last summer, he told her that his convoy was hit with small-arms fire while traveling through Mosul. People have asked her: "Why does he tell you everything?"

But Sandy craves information.

"It helps me know what I need to be praying for," she said.

Before the plane landed in Kansas City, the tears started. They flowed long after she bolted into his arms. "To see him, to hold him, to touch him was the best feeling," she said.

He looked great. He was sporting a new bald pate that took some getting used to, but he was the same old Matt, she said.

While family cared for the boys back in Winston-Salem, the Bowens reconnected in Manhattan, the town next to Fort Riley. The Bowens lived there shortly after they were married and they enjoyed going back to some of their favorite restaurants.

"It was like a little honeymoon," Sandy said.

Being chosen to teach the class meant that Matt could spend a few extra days with Sandy and out of harm's way.

He arrived in Winston-Salem on Dec. 15 to a home exuding holiday warmth: The tree was up, the stockings hung, the presents wrapped and a ceramic Christmas village arranged on a desk.

Sandy had worked diligently in the weeks before Matt's return to get the house in order so that during his break he could kick back and enjoy some of the simple pleasures of family life. He played video games with the boys; helped Sandy fix supper; and ate at his favorite Mexican restaurant.

On Dec. 20, Matt was in the thick of the action at Skate Haven, where Sawyer, with the help of about 15 buddies, celebrated his seventh birthday. Matt gamely attempted the Hokey Pokey in the center of the rink and calmly picked off pieces of pepperoni for kids clamoring for just cheese on their pizza.

It was a world far removed from the one that he had left. Matt is stationed in a rural section of Iraq that, he said, is relatively safe compared with Baghdad and southern Iraq. Still, he stays in a constant state of readiness, always on the lookout for roadside bombs and armed insurgents.

He frequently accompanies Iraqi soldiers when they venture into villages to nab blacklisted insurgents. He rides in convoys to Tal Afar and Mosul, urban areas rife with violence.

Just two days before leaving for Kuwait to go home, Matt's Iraqi counterparts found an improvised explosive device (IED) made of three 120-millimeter mortars strapped together and buried on the side of the road in their sector.

In between the violence and danger, he has had time to connect with Iraqi citizens. Some of his most rewarding exchanges have been with the children in the villages of northern Iraq.

Their poverty moved him to start a toy giveaway shortly after he arrived. He enlisted a friend back home, Tom Boone, to send him stuffed animals for him to give to children. Churches, civic clubs and scouts from all over Forsyth County have donated stuffed animals.

Since September, Matt and his Iraqi counterparts have given away more than 3,000 stuffed animals on goodwill visits to villages. The children are nervous when they first encounter the soldiers but are filled with joy when given a stuffed animal, he said.

During one visit, he tried some of his Arabic, and the children their English (many grade-school children in Iraq are learning English). They asked him to read from an English book, then sat quietly as he turned the pages of the book. Afterward, they thanked him for his time.

"You have to find things here that you feel make a difference or you will go crazy," he wrote in an e-mail. "You are just a tiny bit of the effort, but you have to feel like you have done something to better this place."

He has six more months to do so. Matt left his family Dec. 29 for what he hopes is the final time. Sandy found it easier to say goodbye. Sawyer, however, who clung to his father during his two weeks at home, cried at the airport. Henry carried on in joyful oblivion. He'll kiss his father's picture every night and babble with him on the telephone.

Bowen arrived in Al Kasik on Jan. 4. A few days before, Saddam Hussein was hanged, the number of U.S. military deaths reached 3,000, and President Bush announced a troop increase.

But the Bowens, just one of thousands of American families fractured by war, press ahead. The Christmas tree down and the decorations packed away for another year, Sandy and the boys returned to their routine.

Home did feel like a dream, Matt said, a wonderful dream that filled him with warmth.

Yet, as much as he pines for his family, he knows he has to keep his emotions in check. He doesn't keep track of how many days he has left. He approaches each day as if it were his first day in Iraq: alert, focused and fresh.

"You just kind of shut family out while you are there," he said a few days before Christmas as the lights shimmered on the tree. "If you dwell on it too much, it will hurt your heart."

• Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lo'donnell@wsjournal.com.