“It’s my job. It’s what I signed up to do. “I guess my feelings are a little ambivalent. On the one hand, I don’t like leaving my family and friends for a year. On the other hand, this is what I’ve been training to do all my life.”
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Courageous citizen soldiers have gone to war. Spouses, children, parents and much-loved family and friends are fighting their own battles here at home. What happens to lives interrupted by deadly conflict? |
HOW QUICKLY LIFE CAN CHANGE
War beckons, and a Quincy couple tries to cope
AMELIA KUNHARDT/The Patriot Ledger
Sgt. Adrian Gunn and his wife, Nicole Sykes, center, wait for a farewell ceremony for Gunn’s National Guard unit to start on Cambridge Common. From left: Gunn’s brother Alex; his father, Paul, seated; and Sykes’ parents, Laura and Michael.
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STORY AND PHOTOS BY AMELIA KUNHARDT
THE PATRIOT LEDGER
QUINCY
Nicole Sykes had just returned home from the preschool where she teaches. Her husband, Adrian Gunn, had just finished his first day at the MBTA’s transit police academy. That’s when they got the phone call that changed their lives.
It was from Gunn’s Massachusetts National Guard unit.
Two days later, Sgt. Gunn found out he would be going to Iraq for a year. He deployed to Iraq July 8 as a member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Army National Guard based in Cambridge.
“We had a very serious conversation after that phone call,” Sykes recalled of that evening in late May.
The young couple was suddenly faced with the very real likelihood of war and separation. “We’d gotten lucky for so many years,” she said.
“This is the first time I’ve been sent anywhere since 9/11,” Gunn added during an interview before he shipped out. He had been sent to Camp Edwards on Cape Cod when he was called to active duty after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
“In the military, you never know what’s going to happen next,” said Gunn, who joined the National Guard in 1998 after serving in the Army for eight years.
Before being accepted into the transit police academy, Gunn, 35, was a security guard at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth. He and Sykes, 26, live in the Wollaston section of Quincy. They married in 2004.
“The toughest thing is the uncertainty. When you’re active duty, it’s what you do, it’s your job. With the National Guard, it (the possibility of deployment) is always in the background looming. You don’t know when it’s going to pop up,” he said.
Rather than enjoy a slow-paced summer together, Gunn and Sykes spent most of June preparing for his deployment overseas. A camouflaged backpack and helmet, a portable GPS device - given to Gunn by members of the couple’s church, United First Parish in Quincy - and a new laptop computer sat in the couple’s dining room, ready to be packed.
“There’s too much to process all at once. Life’s on pause right now,” Gunn said. “We’re doing today today, and tomorrow tomorrow.”
“It is amazing how quickly life can change. It is definitely very emotional,” Sykes said.
“The war isn’t necessarily a popular war. Everyone has just been amazingly supportive. I’m very touched.”
“The war isn’t necessarily a popular war. Everyone has just been amazingly supportive. I’m very touched,” she added.
“It’s my job. It’s what I signed up to do,” Gunn said. “I guess my feelings are a little ambivalent. On the one hand, I don’t like leaving my family and friends for a year. On the other hand, this is what I’ve been training to do all my life.”
During his eight years in the Army, Gunn served twice in Korea and on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Balkans while stationed in Germany. “I was never shot at. I’ve never shot at anybody,” he said.
Sykes fully supports her husband.
“I’m looking at it as, ‘This is Adrian. Adrian’s morals and values are very important to him. When he’s called to duty, he’s going to do his job,’” she said. “He’s good-hearted, incredibly sensitive and very strong. We’ve both become better (people) since we’ve known each other.
“To him, deployment means one thing. To me, I want specific answers. How long are you going? If they tell you it’s a year, is it really going to be a year? I’m telling myself he’s coming back next July,” she said.
The unit’s deployment is supposed to be for a year. But the couple knows things can change. “They can decide and keep us for longer than that if they want to,” Gunn said.
A ground soldier is the only description Gunn is allowed to give when talking about what his job will be in Iraq.
And he doesn’t talk much about what he expects to see there.
“I’m honestly more nervous about leaving my wife for a year than going over there. I’ve got confidence in my abilities and my training. I’m sure it’s worse for her knowing where I’m going.”
Sykes turned quiet as she listened to his words.
“I ask everyone to pray for his safe return,” she said.
Amelia Kunhardt may be reached at akunhardt@ledger.com.