The American Widow Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to the new generation of those who have lost the heroes of yesterday, today and tomorrow, with an emphasis on healing through sharing stories, tears and laughter.........Widow to Widow.
"We Regret To Inform You" is a documentary about its founders, part of a series called "In Their Boots" which is being produced by Brave New Foundation. For the next three weeks (starting today, actually) "We Regret to Inform You" is being debuted at www.intheirboots.com."
American Widow Project and In Their Boots are doggedly non-political and nothing either group does is intended to comment on the wars, or the politics that surround them. In Their Boots is here to tell the stories and The American Widow Project is here to support the Families of the Men and Women who have given their lives in the service of their country.
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I'm not going to lie... there are so many things that I cannot remember that its almost ridiculous. I try to read through our old emails, but they just don't do enough justice. I wish I could remember more about the man I spent so much time with.
I met Joe early in 2003. I was a new soldier in my unit, 2 weeks fresh out of AIT...he, on the other hand, was a well seasoned soldier. 82nd Airborne Infantry, "Devils in Baggy Pants". He had been stationed in Korea and did a tour in Kosovo before he decided to join the FL national guard. He was 23, I was 19.
I joined the Army Nat'l Guard in March of 2002 while I was finishing up my senior year of high school. I left for basic training on Oct 1st, 2002, graduated Dec 12, 2002 and was then sent to Ft. Huachuca, AZ for AIT in January of 2003, I graduated from the Intel school in May of 2003 and just a couple weeks later joined my regular unit... my first field exercise happened to be the 2 week annual training. This is where I would meet the love of my life.
He was a SPC, I was a PV1. I had no idea who this guy was and my first encounter with him was awkward. He worked the night shifts and I worked the days. One day on a break I was going back to my tent only to find this stranger sleeping in it. My LT informed me that he needed sleep and he was using our tent to do so... alrighty then. So I left him alone and went back to work. Towards the end of training we had to take driving tests for our military vehicle licenses and guess who got to teach me how to drive a 2 ½ ton truck? Yep, SPC Fuerst and oh was he excited, nothing like teaching a brand new female soldier how to drive an army truck! He loved it by the way, but that's another story.
So anyway, after 2 weeks in the field there are always end of exercise parties and you are allowed to go off base, etc. Well, one night a group of us decided to go hit up a couple bars/clubs that were about an hour off post. I didn't know Joe from Jack but found myself hanging out with him at the bar. Remember I was only 19, so I wasn't able to buy myself drinks... well, Joe did a good job at sneaking me some Jack and cokes. We sat around this little round table and I would down the drink so I wouldn't get caught drinking it and we were just bullshitting. A few of our other friends were out dancing and a group of us were just chilling at the table. Well, it was getting late and I was ready to go back to the barracks...my friend, on the other hand, wasn't. Joe was ready as well. So he called a taxi and a little while later I was on my way back to the barracks with a soldier I hardly knew.
This is where things get kind of funny and awkward. So we were sitting in the taxi heading back to base and Joe or who I knew as "SPC Fuerst" decided to lean over to kiss me. I pushed him away because again I hardly knew him... he did it a second time on our hour long ride back to base and again I pushed him away and I was like, "Hey, ummm, I dont know you, what are you doing?" Anyway, I guess the number 3 is lucky, because the third time he leaned in to kiss me, I just went with it and said what the hell and kissed him back... So here we are pretty much strangers to each other and kissing in a taxi van on the way back to base. He walked me to my barracks, asked me if he could come in and I said "No". LOL... So he went back to his barracks and we both went to sleep.
The following day we had the company party and we had kegs, we were hanging out at the lake on post, playing volleyball and cooking out and drinking at the barracks. Joe and I shared a bottle of Jack Daniels (his favorite). We would hide behind the humvees and kiss like we were little 10 year olds hiding from our parents. It was fun and cute and exciting. I had no idea where this was going to go. Anyway, a week later after training when we got home, we started hanging out and I would call him my boyfriend and I was his girlfriend. This is where it really begins. We started dating right away and a couple years later on March 5th, 2005 I would become his wife. And a week after our wedding we were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. There are so many more things I could say now that I'm on a roll, but I will get to the life altering part.
It was the morning of 24 June 2006. My husband made his daily call to me at 7am (we had cell phones). He told me he was in from his 2 day mission and that he loved me and he was going to bed. I told him I loved him too and I was glad he was in and to get some rest - half sleeping while talking to him. A few hours later I woke up to go start my shift. Right before chow I checked my significant activities to make sure nothing was going on in my area and of course there was...I proceeded to take the report. This was nothing new, I dealt with these things multiple times a day and it was routine, I was in country now for almost a year.
I reported that there was a troops in contact going on and the location. I started sending some reports, again -- routine. Then right before I was about to leave for chow I got a message that two soldiers had been shot. Ok, well, that sucks, but again -- nothing new, we got used to it over there. I took down the battle roster numbers, when I noticed myself giving the computer screen a double take. The report read: Soldier, battle roster number FU8132 GSW to the leg. (GSW: Gun Shot Wound). Immediately my heart dropped. That was my husband's battle roster number.
I started running around like crazy and contacting the Special Forces guys and getting my commanders spun up on what was going on and vice versa. I confirmed with the SF guys that it was indeed my husband who was shot, but he was okay and stable. I started begging that the helicopters get out there to get the guys who were shot, I was desperate. This is where things get kind of blurry for me, so bear with me.
I called up one of my best friends and told him I needed him to come to my office and I was sobbing and he couldn't understand what I was saying. He came to my office and I was a wreck. I told him Joe had been shot and he tried to reassure me that things would be fine and it was only a GSW to the leg. His partner was shot in the shoulder with a grazing head wound. We sat there reading and delivering messages on the computer and via radio to my unit and back and forth with the SF guys. I called my other best friend who is like a sister to me and was in another part of the country, she was an analyst as well, and a good friend of Joe's. I told her what was going on and that I needed her to help me monitor the situation. She was in disbelief.
I tried to call his cell phone probably a million times, but there was no answer... of course, I knew he was in a firefight and his phone was the last thing on his mind. He was a part of a quick reaction force that was sent out because of a firefight already going on and he didn't have time to call me before he left (which was something he always did before a mission). A new report comes in; a medic was shot in the head and died immediately. Now we have 1 KIA and 2 x WIA. (Killed In Action / Wounded In Action.) Things were only getting worse as darkness grew upon us. The helicopters couldn't land for 2 or 3 hours as Joe and his buddy lay there only a few hundred meters out from the rest of the men. The helicopters kept getting shot at. I was freaking out. It was taking too long. Finally another member of Joe's team low crawled to him and his partner and he carried Joe out of the line of fire and back to a safer area. I was told the helicopters had picked up the men and that they were on their way back to my base, which had the hospital.
I left my office and went to the hospital to wait for what seemed like forever. Yet he was only minutes away from where I was. He was so close, but yet so far and out of reach from any help. I waited there at the hospital with the rest of my men, and waited and waited. I remember standing inside the hallway of the hospital and the doc looking at me with horror in his eyes... one man had died en route on the flight back, so they said. They assured me it was not my husband, which meant he was the only one out of 3 men to make it. My stomach was in knots as I waited an eternity for the birds to land. My good friend who was also a medic left to meet the bird on the flight line, while I and the rest of my men waited closer to the hospital. Two of my men started walking towards me from the darkness of the airfield and I saw their arms around each other and they were crying. I knew this was bad news.
I started to shake and cry and get pissed off and I didn't believe it. They were still a good 40 feet from me. They got to me as my men stood behind me with their hands on my back waiting for any news. They shook their heads as they had their arms across each other's backs crying. One soldier standing beside me took my rifle from me. My soldier who came to deliver me the news tried to hug me... I pushed him and everybody else out of my way as I walked angrily towards a SF Ford Ranger... I began to beat the living shit out of it with my fists... our base was loaded with rocks on the ground and I started picking them up and throwing them at the port-a-johns and hospital wall... I tried to rip a fence apart and finally I fell to my knees screaming. I sat there forever crying out for someone to help me and yet on a base full of soldiers I felt like the only person there. Screaming like a child and throwing a fit, overtook by raw emotion.
My friend who went to help Joe get off of the bird came up behind me kneeled down and just held me. I couldn't believe it. I didn't even know he was on a mission. I took the report of my husband being shot and his men being shot. I saw the details first hand of the battle as it was raging. I called my best friend Kim, and told her the news, I said, "He's gone, he's dead!" She hadn't seen the report come across yet and couldn't believe it... I hung up the phone. And then I was "drunk" with emotion. Quiet and scary.
They took me into the mortuary after they cleaned him up. I made everyone in the tent leave. Me and my good friend Derek could see where his body was laying. It took me forever to walk up to him. I was scared to death... this was realization. We walked up to him, zipped down the bag. I saw the most horrifying thing any human could ever see. I saw my husband fresh out of a battle, laying there, dead. His eyes lost their brown luster. His body was cold. I kissed his forehead and held him. His forehead was warm. I was just waiting for him to wake up. The Catholic priest came in. We read his last rites. I left the morgue, went back to my office and my command started to make a plan to get me out of Kandahar and back to Kabul with the rest of my main unit and then home to plan his funeral and be with family.
The rest of the night I sat outside of my barracks with my good friend Derek, neither of us said a word; we just sat there in shock. My phone rang around 7am, it said "Joe calling." I knew it couldn't have been him, he was gone, and I couldn't answer it. I had my friend answer it. I still don't know who had his phone or if the Taliban took it, they had taken his buddy's plate from his flack vest (which was later shown in a propaganda video).
Later that morning some of our leaders flew down to Kandahar to be there for the RAMP ceremony, I wanted to stay, but I had to leave and next thing I know I'm on a flight back to Kabul. My best friend who was in a different location was also sent back to Kabul. She and a security team met me at the Kabul airport as I flew in; we went back to Camp Phoenix. Her and her brother who was also deployed with us escorted me back to the states. Four days from the time Joe was shot I would be back in Florida planning the funeral of my husband. We were so close to being out of the sandbox. Only another week and my unit was leaving. And this is where my memory basically ends.
I don't remember much after this night. However, I remember this night with vivid detail. I don't remember the flight home, or preparing for his funeral. The Fourth of July was here. Fireworks made my stomach turn, like a gunshot coming our way or a rocket about to land. The next day would be Joe's viewing and the 6th would be his funeral. A lot of the soldiers from my unit were able to make it in time for that, which was just another reminder of how close we were to being home, although I, Joe and my best friend Kim had planned to extend our time in country.
There is not one night that I do not relive this. There is not a single time that I hear a firework and don't think about the RPG shot that killed my husband. This will forever be embedded in my memory. I only wish I could remember everything else that we did or talked about. Words do not come to me. Conversations escape my mind. I am blank, I am withdrawn, and some would say I don't talk much. The truth is I just don't know what to say or how to react. I have nightmares and thoughts that I try to deny. I have a hard time dealing with things that have happened over there, not only from my own experiences in Afghanistan, but from Joe's experiences and my buddies' experiences. Anyway, that is what I remember.
I just want to thank all of the widows I have met for listening to me, even when I may not have much to say. And most importantly for sharing their own stories with me. They mean so much to me to hear them. I love you guys with all of my heart. And thank you, Taryn, most of all for starting this organization. You are a gift and a true friend that I treasure.
Tara, Proud Military Widow of SSGT Joseph Fuerst KIA 6.24.06
Here is an article released this year about this incident.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/18/60minutes/main4026734.shtml