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?

LETTING GO

When Weymouth soldier decides to serve in Iraq, his wife steps up with reinforcements

AMELIA KUNHARDT/The Patriot Ledger Solveig Sheehan holds a photo of her husband, Richard, a first sergeant in the Army National Guard, who left for training in May and will soon be deployed to Iraq. Solveig copes by keeping busy as the leader of the unit’s family readiness group.

STORY BY KAREN GOULART | PHOTOS BY AMELIA KUNHARDT
THE PATRIOT LEDGER

WEYMOUTH

Two weeks in a row, Solveig Sheehan forgot to take out the trash. Chores are divvied up in the Sheehan household in Weymouth, and the trash cans were one of the jobs that fell to her husband, Richard. But he isn’t home now to take the cans to the curb. Or to kill spiders. Or to help out with any of the other hundred things that pop up in domestic life each day. They are all her jobs now.

On May 5, the Army National Guard 1st sergeant said goodbye to home life, his wife of four years, and his job as a Budweiser salesman and headed to a training camp in Mississippi. Next stop: Iraq.

Any time now, he’ll be making the next leg of his trip with his fellow soldiers of Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts National Guard.

Solveig doesn’t know when her husband will be leaving, or where he will be going in Iraq until he gets there.

It’s an uncomfortable position to be in, she admitted with a laugh and a shrug. But, she said, this is his passion, and the reason he has served 21 years in the National Guard.

“It’s hard for an outside person to understand how you can let a loved one go,” she said.

Solveig, 31, and Richard, 39, have been married for four years and together for 12. Richard had been in the Guard for nine years when Solveig first saw him at a local restaurant and decided on the spot that she would spend the rest of her life with him.

Coming from a military family herself, Solveig could relate to Richard’s desire to serve, and his dedication to his fellow soldiers and his country. These are some of the things she admires most about him.

AMELIA KUNHARDT/The Patriot Ledger Solveig Sheehan holds a recent photo of her husband, Richard Sheehan, a first sergeant in the National Guard. Over the course of their relationship, Richard has been deployed twice, to Bosnia and to Guantanamo in Cuba. He will soon be deployed to Iraq.

Over the course of their relationship, Richard has been deployed twice, to Bosnia and to Guantanamo in Cuba.

Each of those departures brought unique emotions, Solveig said. When Richard was called to go to Bosnia they were not yet married.

“We had to deal with being together, but being apart,” she said. “We were about to get married the next year; it was a challenge, but we got through it.”

When he went to Cuba in late 2003, Solveig was relieved. “I knew he’d be safe,” she said.

But this latest deployment is definitely different. This time he is going to a war zone.

“Now that he’s going to Iraq, it’s going to be a long year,” Solveig said. “It’s dangerous. It’s the unexpected that I’m afraid of, not only for him but a lot of our friends are going.”

A member of 1st Battalion’s Charlie Company, Richard was called up to fill in with Delta Company. Since he was being asked to serve with a different company, he could have said no.

“But he didn’t,” his wife said with a smile.

“This is what he’s been training for all of his adult life. It would be like going to school for 21 years, and then not doing the job you studied for,” she explained. “This is what he wants to do; he’s eager to go because it’s one of his careers.”

Just as her husband is a leader for the soldiers in his company, Solveig has taken on the role of helping guide their spouses and children as the leader of the unit’s family readiness group.

But unlike her husband, she has had no training for her job. There’s no handbook on how to bring together and shore up the spirits of 200 families across New England.

“Once you start, it’s up to you to figure things out,” she said. “Trouble is, these are soldiers spread out over four states; how to connect the families has been a challenge.”

The family readiness group has had its first meeting, and plans to meet on a monthly basis. They will also stay connected through activities for the children - picnics, parties, sending care packages - and through a company newspaper and a families-only website, where messages and photos can be posted.

“The key thing is, your world doesn’t stop; it’s not like I’m just going to stay home,” Solveig said. “You do what you have to do, you keep busy.”

With the readiness group and her regular job as a nurse in the intensive care unit at Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, this should be no problem for Solveig. And be it by e-mail, web posts, or cell phone, Richard will never be far from her.

He had called that morning from Mississippi.

“He’s doing fine - hot,” she said with a laugh. “He’s getting ready for Iraq.”

Karen Goulart may be reached at kgoulart@ledger.com.