Dec. 12, 2011: Remember the reservists

This originally appeared in The News & Observer:

"Come home" were the last words Erin Timmermans spoke to her husband before he deployed to Afghanistan last month, a day after their impromptu wedding at the Wake County courthouse.

Fourteen long months must pass before Erin can say "Welcome home" to Ryan Timmermans, who is with about 100 other members of the Garner-based 340th Psychological Operations Company trying to smooth over U.S. relations with the Afghan people.

In the meantime, what Erin hopes the community will want to say to Ryan and the rest of the Army reservists is "Thank you."

Erin Timmermans' PeaceLovePackages Project, one of the charities listed in The N&O's Holiday Guide to Giving at http://bit.ly/givingguide, aims to send "a piece of home" to each member of the 340th every month of the deployment. Find details about the project, which needs letters and donations of basic supplies, at www.peacelovepackages.wordpress.com.

"Imagine being really, really thirsty," Timmermans says, quoting a speech Ryan gave to a Girl Scout troop before he left. "Imagine wishing you could have that one drink you have sitting on the counter at home. When they get those packages, it feels like absolute relief."

That someone would care enough to send the troops something they can't get access to, something we take for granted, means everything, she says.

"A bag of M&Ms and some Skittles," Timmermans says, pausing as she searches for words that could make these colorful confections seem as precious as emeralds and rubies. "These guys are living in huts in the dirt, so a bag of Skittles means so much to them."

As reservists, the soldiers of the 340th and their families do not have the support network or access to resources that full-time military folks have, which gives urgency to her project.

"If you're full-time, you have military housing, military food, military day care while you're deployed," says Timmermans, associate executive director of the National Association of Social Workers-NC. "Here, all these soldiers have is the community, and you hope like you-know-what that they will help."

To make her efforts to give comfort to this crew even more special, Timmermans won't send each soldier the same box with the same supplies. 

She knows each birthday and each soldier's favorite activities and will individualize the packages.

But you can be sure every box will have:

Travel-size baby wipes - by far the No. 1 request

Hand sanitizer

A prepaid calling card.

"Can you believe baby wipes?" Timmermans asks. "They don't necessarily always have access to a shower, and baby wipes are really easy to clean up with. They can just carry that one little pack with them everywhere."

What these soldiers also carry with them everywhere is the knowledge that any day in still-dangerous Afghanistan could be their last.

Timmermans, whose voice has been strong and engaging throughout an interview, is silent a few seconds when I ask how much she worries about the man she has loved for more than three years.

"Oh. My. Gosh," she strings out quietly. "I worry all day and all night. You almost got me crying there."

In mid-November, a date Timmermans can't disclose because of Army regulations, she visited the Garner base as the unit prepared for departure. Ryan, a 1994 graduate of Millbrook High School and the son and brother of Army vets, suggested they take a drive downtown.

"I said, 'Why?' He said to get a marriage license," recalls Timmermans, 27, a New Bern native and daughter of a career Navy man. "I said, 'What?' I hadn't even washed my hair! We literally went to the clerk of court, paid our money, went to the courthouse, paid our money. The rest is history."

While her soldier is gone, Timmermans will plan a real wedding, hoping the excitement and anticipation will ease the stab of the rare communication she receives from him these days, texts with yet another two-word message:

"I'm alive."

bwheeler@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4825