.Couple calls Merced home after serving in Iraq
CERES -- Christopher Van Meter's eighth-grade students have a million questions about the year he spent fighting in Iraq with the National Guard.
But one turns up more than any other.
"Did you shoot anyone?"
It was among the first questions they asked when he returned to Blaker-Kinser Junior High School this winter, and it still surfaces, even when Van Meter says he doesn't talk about it.
"What would you think of me if you knew I had taken someone's life?" he asked a group of girls recently after they inquired about his war experience.
"We don't see that part of you," Ashly Torres, 14, said.
"We don't see you as a killer," said Angela Saucedo, 13.
Van Meter fought alongside his wife, Elizabeth, in the 250th Military Intelligence Battalion. The military allowed them to be in the same unit, but not to go on the same missions.
Their unit was charged with gathering information about insurgent attacks and conducting raids to deter them.
Christopher, 32, hangs an Iraqi flag in his classroom. War comes up in current events assignments and in conversations with boys who wonder whether they'll have to make snap choices affecting their survival when they become men.
He opens the floor to questions about cultural differences, poverty and Army life, but words sometimes fail him when he tries to describe his experiences.
"I wish you could just feel when you're in that environment, just not knowing what's coming," he said in an interview at his Merced home. "You feel your blood just go through you -- not that I'd want anybody to feel that."
"There's a reason for that, why they don't know," Elizabeth, 22, cut in. "We're the ones who volunteer."
As they did in Iraq, they turn to each other now to work through the things they saw in combat.
Elizabeth, a college student, gets nightmares of deploying again -- it was only three months after returning from the mission to Bosnia where they met that they learned they would go to Iraq.
Christopher tunes out from time to time by playing video games.
They center their energies on adjusting to their new home and on planning their wedding celebration. This time they'll invite friends and family to a Murphys winery instead of rushing to a San Joaquin County judge.
"It seems like it went by so fast," said Elizabeth, who grew up in Manteca. "You wake up sometimes and you think, 'Was I there? Did that happen?'"
They said fighting in Iraq together was a mixed blessing. They were grateful for the few minutes they shared at the end of each day, when they knew they were safe.
But they also knew too well the threats the other faced upon leaving the base.
Elizabeth often went to interview informants. Christopher wouldn't say what his assignments included, though he acknowledged he had a knack for coming up on violence between Iraqis.
"The best thing that could have happened was that we were able to go together," Christopher said. "But if it happened again, I don't think we would."
"In Iraq, you're worrying about your spouse every day," Elizabeth said.
Those fears came into focus on March 25, 2005, when Christopher's three-vehicle convoy encountered an improvised explosive device that burst a few feet in front of his unprotected position in a Humvee's gun turret.
The blast knocked him out, sending shrapnel into his face and arm.
Elizabeth got the news almost immediately on her unit's radio.
Soldiers assured her he was fine, but she wouldn't know until she saw him.
Christopher got back to the base in his shrapnel-riddled Humvee, stepped out of the truck and waved his bandaged right hand at Elizabeth.
"Hey, baby," he said.
"Don't you 'Hey, baby' me," she replied, staring at his blackened face.
She was relieved to see him, but he was out on convoys, still manning the gun turret, within a week. They had seven months to go on their tour.
"Neither of us wanted to let the other go outside the wire," Christopher said.
Aside from the stress of knowing what lurked outside the base, they encountered other surprises unique to their situation as a couple.
Some soldiers, perhaps envious about being away from their loved ones while the Van Meters were together, left insults directed at them scrawled on the walls inside portable toilets. Elizabeth characterized the comments as "disgusting."
They also spent months trying to negotiate separate housing for themselves away from the 500-person barracks where they slept at first. Their base, Camp Victory, was the size of a city, and it had room for married housing, they said.
It took a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to get the Van Meters a metal shack on the base about three months before they returned to the States.
They could tell their relationship sometimes took away from their duties.
"I gave 98 percent," said Christopher, a staff sergeant who took over his unit's operations command toward the end of his tour. "I didn't give 100 percent because I had my wife there and I could spend 20 minutes with her."
Elizabeth's mother, Julie Schumacher, was thankful they had each other. Her younger daughter, Sarah, was deployed with a National Guard unit in Afghanistan while the Van Meters were in Iraq.
"Knowing (Elizabeth) had somebody to talk with, and be with, and celebrate the birthdays and the holidays, that was probably a good thing," Schumacher, 43, said.
The Van Meters met at a New Year's Eve party in 2003 at an Army base in Bosnia.
A month later, they watched a movie together in Elizabeth's room. They laughed, when suddenly they felt a long silence. They filled the space with a kiss.
"We knew we'd be together on the first kiss. That was it," Elizabeth said.
She came home to Manteca in February, leaving Christopher with a vague Valentine indicating he could call her if he wanted.
He did.
He flew home to Michigan in April, and they began a long-distance relationship, flying to see one another every other week.
He joined her in Manteca in June and got a teaching job at the Ceres Unified School District. They knew they'd marry if they were deployed again.
She learned her unit would go to Iraq in July, while Christopher was visiting family in New Orleans.
"She asked, 'Do you still want to get married?' I said, 'Absolutely,'" Christopher remembered.
He transferred from his Michigan-based Army reserve unit to Elizabeth's National Guard battalion, and they shipped out for training in September, arriving in Iraq in November. Ceres Unified put Christopher's teaching position on hold until he returned.
They came back to the valley after a year in Iraq, and Christopher started teaching within two months. They bought a house in Merced in February.
Christopher expects to be deployed sometime in the future. He wants to spend another six years in the National Guard, though not necessarily in Elizabeth's unit.
She has two years left in her service and is planning a medical career. She intends to enroll at California State University, Stanislaus, in the fall.
At Blaker-Kinser, Christopher's students say they look up to him because of his military background. They say he doesn't put up with bad behavior, something they attribute to his service. Yet they also say he's approachable and someone who will listen to them.
"He's one of those teachers you can talk about things with," said Michael Santos, 14, who is considering following his father and grandfather into the military.
After seeing two war- ravaged countries, Christopher says his military experience is beginning to shape aspects of his teaching. He was struck in both countries by how people endured hardships that seem unimaginable in the U.S.
"You understand what people have been able to get through and survive," he says. "You try and show your students that getting through problems shows who they are."
MercedSunStar
But one turns up more than any other.
"Did you shoot anyone?"
It was among the first questions they asked when he returned to Blaker-Kinser Junior High School this winter, and it still surfaces, even when Van Meter says he doesn't talk about it.
"What would you think of me if you knew I had taken someone's life?" he asked a group of girls recently after they inquired about his war experience.
"We don't see that part of you," Ashly Torres, 14, said.
"We don't see you as a killer," said Angela Saucedo, 13.
Van Meter fought alongside his wife, Elizabeth, in the 250th Military Intelligence Battalion. The military allowed them to be in the same unit, but not to go on the same missions.
Their unit was charged with gathering information about insurgent attacks and conducting raids to deter them.
Christopher, 32, hangs an Iraqi flag in his classroom. War comes up in current events assignments and in conversations with boys who wonder whether they'll have to make snap choices affecting their survival when they become men.
He opens the floor to questions about cultural differences, poverty and Army life, but words sometimes fail him when he tries to describe his experiences.
"I wish you could just feel when you're in that environment, just not knowing what's coming," he said in an interview at his Merced home. "You feel your blood just go through you -- not that I'd want anybody to feel that."
"There's a reason for that, why they don't know," Elizabeth, 22, cut in. "We're the ones who volunteer."
As they did in Iraq, they turn to each other now to work through the things they saw in combat.
Elizabeth, a college student, gets nightmares of deploying again -- it was only three months after returning from the mission to Bosnia where they met that they learned they would go to Iraq.
Christopher tunes out from time to time by playing video games.
They center their energies on adjusting to their new home and on planning their wedding celebration. This time they'll invite friends and family to a Murphys winery instead of rushing to a San Joaquin County judge.
"It seems like it went by so fast," said Elizabeth, who grew up in Manteca. "You wake up sometimes and you think, 'Was I there? Did that happen?'"
They said fighting in Iraq together was a mixed blessing. They were grateful for the few minutes they shared at the end of each day, when they knew they were safe.
But they also knew too well the threats the other faced upon leaving the base.
Elizabeth often went to interview informants. Christopher wouldn't say what his assignments included, though he acknowledged he had a knack for coming up on violence between Iraqis.
"The best thing that could have happened was that we were able to go together," Christopher said. "But if it happened again, I don't think we would."
"In Iraq, you're worrying about your spouse every day," Elizabeth said.
Those fears came into focus on March 25, 2005, when Christopher's three-vehicle convoy encountered an improvised explosive device that burst a few feet in front of his unprotected position in a Humvee's gun turret.
The blast knocked him out, sending shrapnel into his face and arm.
Elizabeth got the news almost immediately on her unit's radio.
Soldiers assured her he was fine, but she wouldn't know until she saw him.
Christopher got back to the base in his shrapnel-riddled Humvee, stepped out of the truck and waved his bandaged right hand at Elizabeth.
"Hey, baby," he said.
"Don't you 'Hey, baby' me," she replied, staring at his blackened face.
She was relieved to see him, but he was out on convoys, still manning the gun turret, within a week. They had seven months to go on their tour.
"Neither of us wanted to let the other go outside the wire," Christopher said.
Aside from the stress of knowing what lurked outside the base, they encountered other surprises unique to their situation as a couple.
Some soldiers, perhaps envious about being away from their loved ones while the Van Meters were together, left insults directed at them scrawled on the walls inside portable toilets. Elizabeth characterized the comments as "disgusting."
They also spent months trying to negotiate separate housing for themselves away from the 500-person barracks where they slept at first. Their base, Camp Victory, was the size of a city, and it had room for married housing, they said.
It took a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to get the Van Meters a metal shack on the base about three months before they returned to the States.
They could tell their relationship sometimes took away from their duties.
"I gave 98 percent," said Christopher, a staff sergeant who took over his unit's operations command toward the end of his tour. "I didn't give 100 percent because I had my wife there and I could spend 20 minutes with her."
Elizabeth's mother, Julie Schumacher, was thankful they had each other. Her younger daughter, Sarah, was deployed with a National Guard unit in Afghanistan while the Van Meters were in Iraq.
"Knowing (Elizabeth) had somebody to talk with, and be with, and celebrate the birthdays and the holidays, that was probably a good thing," Schumacher, 43, said.
The Van Meters met at a New Year's Eve party in 2003 at an Army base in Bosnia.
A month later, they watched a movie together in Elizabeth's room. They laughed, when suddenly they felt a long silence. They filled the space with a kiss.
"We knew we'd be together on the first kiss. That was it," Elizabeth said.
She came home to Manteca in February, leaving Christopher with a vague Valentine indicating he could call her if he wanted.
He did.
He flew home to Michigan in April, and they began a long-distance relationship, flying to see one another every other week.
He joined her in Manteca in June and got a teaching job at the Ceres Unified School District. They knew they'd marry if they were deployed again.
She learned her unit would go to Iraq in July, while Christopher was visiting family in New Orleans.
"She asked, 'Do you still want to get married?' I said, 'Absolutely,'" Christopher remembered.
He transferred from his Michigan-based Army reserve unit to Elizabeth's National Guard battalion, and they shipped out for training in September, arriving in Iraq in November. Ceres Unified put Christopher's teaching position on hold until he returned.
They came back to the valley after a year in Iraq, and Christopher started teaching within two months. They bought a house in Merced in February.
Christopher expects to be deployed sometime in the future. He wants to spend another six years in the National Guard, though not necessarily in Elizabeth's unit.
She has two years left in her service and is planning a medical career. She intends to enroll at California State University, Stanislaus, in the fall.
At Blaker-Kinser, Christopher's students say they look up to him because of his military background. They say he doesn't put up with bad behavior, something they attribute to his service. Yet they also say he's approachable and someone who will listen to them.
"He's one of those teachers you can talk about things with," said Michael Santos, 14, who is considering following his father and grandfather into the military.
After seeing two war- ravaged countries, Christopher says his military experience is beginning to shape aspects of his teaching. He was struck in both countries by how people endured hardships that seem unimaginable in the U.S.
"You understand what people have been able to get through and survive," he says. "You try and show your students that getting through problems shows who they are."
MercedSunStar
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