To The Stars

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The passenger window rolled down about 3 inches. I pulled the little silver button up. The rain was beating down, the roads were creating those puddles that would throw your vehicle around a bit when you were driving. The passenger window went down again. This time about 4 inches, I rolled it up and told Scout to quit messing with me. I was struggling more with the ability to see out my side window with a clear view of the passenger mirror. As soon as I got the window back up, my driver’s window started to go up and down, and up and down. Seriously! Then it just went down, and I was immediately drenched because now the weather was in my vehicle, coming in sideways and stinging my face by the drops of rain attacking me at 60 mph. What in the world is happening? I turned on my blinker and exited the highway, I am in the middle of nowhere Vermont.

At the stop sign, there was a small sign that simply read: “To the Stars”, with an arrow pointing to the right. I was listening now. The silence was extremely loud. This time…I am following the sign.

To go back a few months: I was looking for a sign of positive reinforcement before I attempted this 10,000-mile journey. I was being challenged by my internal compass and couldn’t quite articulate the “why” this trip was so important to my heart. What kind of person just gets into an RV with a pup named Scout and sets off on a national briefing tour spreading a message about TAPS and looking for the good in the world? It was such a quick “GodWink”. Literally, an ad from an old movie appeared on my computer screen. Ad Astra. The movie theme music played in the background and a still shot of the words Ad Astra. I thought about Jon. I thought about Jon hard, tears leaking like pouring rain. I kept thinking about Jon…

Then, days later, the day I left Arizona (8 weeks ago) for the start of this journey, I had a few errands to complete before I started racking up the miles. My RV propane tank needed to be filled by a professional, so I stopped at a hardware store. Cut to the chase…. The dude who reached down to close my propane tanks had an eye-catching tattoo on his forearm. I just stared at his arm. This is a full blown “GodWink”. I am listening, looking, and wondering why I feel like I am getting hints that Jon is lurking around? The Tattoo on his arm renders me speechless as I read the words “Ad Astra Per Aspera” (To the Stars Through Hardship).

My imagination can hear something. I could hear Jon and his chuckle in the distance. It sounded just like how he muttered his words and laughed at the same time. Time is a strange commodity to try to stop, even if it is just for a memory.

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One hot June day twenty years ago, I remember everything so clearly: We were driving in this dastardly convoy that was full of nothing and everything simultaneously. When you go for long periods of white-knuckle desert driving you can be lulled by the serenity of the sand filled view. The tenacity of the sizzling heat was like driving in an oven. Sand blasting your skin, steering wheels so hot that your skin turns into leather as it cooks to the metal in your vehicle. Every moment was so quiet and so very tense that your focus can be non-responsive to outside attention grabbers. Your concentration is on the taillights of the vehicle in front of you. If you have no focus…People get lost.

After driving on the treacherous sand trails of MSR Tampa (Main Supply Route), all Soldiers welcomed a few hours to nap at Camp Cedar. Camp Cedar was just a couple of fuel trucks, barbed wire fence and armed military sentries. The local Iraqi’s were on the outside of the sharp barbed wire fences begging for food and water. They would just appear; those young Iraqi men would come and just stare at our unit’s anomaly of 49 women soldiers (out of 181) that were driving giant trucks. We parked the trucks in a tight formation and hunkered down for a four-hour sleep break. My boots were off, body armor off, shirt untucked, and pants loosened for comfort.

Kenny was sleeping on the front grill of the vehicle; Jon was laying on the top of the hummer roof with me and we were just talking about home and the stars in the sky. I told Jon the story about the Stars of Talil, and why each one was so beautiful in its own way. I admit, I was completely making every fact up about astrology as I told the stories of why stars looked like the animals of the arc and characters of Disney. He would laugh politely and by the end of the conversation I had convinced Jon that because we were on the other side of the world that all the dippers and black holes were upside-down and backwards. The power of belief is amazing. The power Jon had to humor his commander was priceless. We found all the dippers and convinced ourselves that my star theory was the way of the world.

Startled by the feeling of someone in your immediate space; from a dead sleep, I jumped off the top of the hummer like a superhero, yelling in some made up foreign language gibberish. A small group of Iraqi young men had entered the unit area and I was having nothing to do with the intrusion. As I started the chase, my boot laces were flapping in the wind, my right-hand flailing around holding my 9mm (didn’t want to point it directly at someone, but I had fallen asleep with it in my hand). My left hand was reaching out in front of me repeatedly like in a swimming motion to gain speed. I must have looked like the cartoon character Yosemite Sam; he would run around shooting his guns in the air and stomping his feet in those oversized boots.

Ended up, those young men were way faster than my slow 40-year-old attempt to chase. It might have appeared like I was a 5^th grader running against college athletes for the Olympic trials. They smoked my ass! Apparently, these men were some kind of authorized workers. Geez, I had just acted like a fool and turned into a raging mother hen who went into full-blown protection mode over my Soldier’s on the convoy. I was so flustered, humbled, and then had a debilitating rush of adrenaline. I flopped onto the ground and assumed the snow angel position. No..More..Energy..

All I could hear was Jon Fettig’s dorky North Dakota snort laugh. He was laughing hysterically and fighting the urge to tip over and do a belly roll while he was running towards my location at a casual gallop. Before he offered me a hand up, he mimicked my absurdity of running like I had puppet legs and trying to swim through the air. Contagious laughter spontaneously broke out throughout the convoy members as I sulked back to the lead vehicle in the convoy, secretly smirking inside at how sometimes team building comes in the weirdest packages. So hard to be cool when you are the Commander. Ha!

Jon was killed the next month. All I could think about was that last time at Talil and the stars. I was overwhelmed with events after the ambush, trying to orchestrate this controlled chaos, worrying about the effects of this events and how it was going to affect these young Soldiers. As the commander, I was to lead a field memorial service that afternoon and in my planning and sullen silence, I found myself just walking around the vehicles in the motor pool and the reality of the incident was right in front of me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I read it for the first time. Beautifully drawn in chalk on the driver’s door of the identical truck to Jon’s, was a soothing pictorial rendition of an American flag and the words “Ad Astra Per Aspera” written in Latin above the flag, and then below the flag, they had scribed “To the Stars by Hard Ways”, the English translation. Jon Fettig’s name was carefully drawn with tenderness and respect. All the words were beautiful and written in soft pillowy letters, as only a girl would use when she would draw about the boy she loved on the outside of her folder in school. The most amazing and loving gesture forever etched into 180 souls from North Dakota.

Refocus Frenchy…The loud and pouring rain continues to drench the area. I am blinded by determination as I took the turn. I am going to blindly follow this sign “To the Stars” because…Who knows what is at the end of the road. Enough daydreaming about a past that I can’t change. But those thoughts were worth a thousand smiles and a tip of the hat to the mere coincidence of a loving memory.

I maneuvered that RV up and around the muddy trails that just kept climbing and climbing the back hills of somewhere. The trees were a vibrant green and served as a small canopy to shield the rain so I could navigate the slip and slide. My anticipation was growing and out of nowhere the road turned slightly to the right and suddenly the road ended, and a pink house appeared! As fast as this giant of a man came darting out of that house was about as quick as the RV came to a stop and I bounded out of the front door.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking at and the man was trying to catch up to me and I was mumbling about my soldier, the signs, the muddy road, and the window up and down. I snapped a couple pics, desperately looking for something. “Hey, what is this area and why would my RV want to drive up here in the middle of a torrential storm?” He said it was the Arlington Vermont Astrology Club. I stopped and did a perfectly executed about face.

The Pink House spoke to me. My friend Bonnie calls these signs GodWinks. This was a journey to get to the mountain. The message was received, and I smiled, a fearless warmth accompanied me back to the motorhome. I imagine Jon saying, “You know Ma’am, been here with you and I got your back.”

I drove off the mountain in silence. A calmness in my heart and an eagerness to call Jon’s family. I know it has been nearly 20 years, but I miss my Soldier and I want to tell more stories about him. Before I forget, I want to tell the stories about those whom someone loves so very much. My friends who served with your loved one have stories. Ask us. We treasure our connections to your loved ones and as hard as stories can be, the words can be freeing of our memories as well. We want to hear your stories too. Our comrades who no longer grace this earth are remembered tenderly by those of us who served with them. Love Lives On



Reach out to someone who has a story…

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