Post by CCADP on Aug 28, 2005 8:33:16 GMT -5
Looking into the void
Soldier's widow remembers the days before the emptiness
By John Sullivan
Times Herald-Record
jsullivan@th-record.com
The call found Barbara Allen at the funeral home the morning of her husband's wake. A week of nightmares, and the Chester woman had managed to stay standing: First came the news of her husband's death, then the allegation that he and his friend were murdered by one of their own men.
What else could the military possibly tell her?
The call was from Iraq. The man who was beside her husband in his last moments wanted to talk to her. Her husband hadn't died instantly, as she had thought. She listened. Receiver in hand, her legs buckled. Then she collapsed.
ON JUNE 7, 1st Lt. Lou Allen and his friend, Capt. Phil Esposito, died in an explosion at a U.S.-controlled palace in Tikrit, Iraq. Lou Allen was 34. Esposito was 30.
The military has charged Alberto Martinez, a staff sergeant under their command, with their killings. All three served with the New York Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division.
The deaths mark the first case of "fragging," or the killing of officers by one of their own men, in the Iraq War. If found guilty, Martinez could face the death penalty.
There's an investigation into how and why Allen was killed, but no answers.
WHAT WE DO KNOW is that Lou Allen was from Chester. He had four young children, Trevor, Colin, Sean and Jeremy. And he had a wife named Barbara.
A lean blonde, she loves animals, especially dogs and horses. She studied equestrian science in college, cleaned horse stalls, mended fences, hauled hay. She was strong: "A tough guy could kick my a--," she says, "but I'd make him work for it."
Lou Allen was a well-liked science teacher, unafraid to act silly in front of his students. He had a penchant for organizing: the dishes in the dishwasher, just so; the magic markers in his desk sorted according to color; the food on his plate, arranged so nothing was touching.
They met on July 8, 1994, at the Trailsider bar, now called Route 66, in Chester. She remembered him as the boy who passed her in high school, had once sat behind her in an Orange County Community College class: brief encounters of an electric kind.
"Did you ever have people in your life you were just aware of?" she says.
SHE DIDN'T EXPECT the proposal when it came at Lobster Pier about a year later. "I actually thought he was going to dump me, he was acting so weird," she says.
They married on March 23, 1996. Not long afterward, they had their first fight.
He didn't want the hamburger she cooked for him. She fed it to the dog, ran to the bedroom and waited for the fireworks to start.
"Did you just feed my dinner to the dog?" he asked her, before laughing at the answer.
They rarely stayed mad at each other for long.
"Perfect for each other," friends and family agreed.
They had children, one after the other: Trevor, now 6, in 1999, then Colin, 5, Sean, 4, and Jeremy, 1. Eighteen months after the last child was born, Lou, a National Guardsman, volunteered.
You don't have to go to Iraq, not yet, she argued.
I have a duty, he answered.
They spent Memorial Day weekend together before he left for Kuwait and then Iraq. Ten days later, the men from the military showed up at Barbara's door.
Since then, nothing has been the same.
DAYS SWIM BY like dreams: summer holidays, the children's birthdays, the mini-anniversaries she and her husband shared. She wakes up wishing she had died the night before, finds her smile to make it through the day, before another night and the emptiness arrives.
Family outings once defined by T-ball games and walks around the block are now defined by professional grief sessions that leave Trevor, Colin, Sean and Jeremy emotionally charged and questioning.
"Why did the guy just kill Daddy and Phil?"
"Why didn't Daddy run?"
"Did Daddy die in a fire, or did the guy shoot him in the back?"
To some of the questions, she has answers. Others, she will answer when they get older.
THE MAN CHARGED with killing their father was an impostor, "a person pretending to be a soldier, who tricked everybody," she tells her sons.
She tried to stay in their Milford, Pa., home, where the boys attached themselves to the things their father did – the lights he put up, the drawers he put in, the rooms he painted. But when the boys began kissing the walls because their father had painted them, she knew they had to leave.
"Everywhere we looked, we saw him," she says. "Maybe someday that will be comforting, but for now, it's just torture."
She moved back to Orange County, but she couldn't sell Lou's home. She is thinking about turning the Pennsylvania home into a retreat for military families or veterans who need a place to rest, she said.
"At some point in our lives, we all need some place to go."
BARBARA HAS NO place to hide.
She can make it through most days with a smile, on the surface at least, but the media attention has made it hard. She keeps a list of phone numbers from CNN, ABC News and local papers. The phone has quieted for now. But she knows it won't be long before the military decides what to do with Martinez, and it will start to ring again.
Locally, most members of the community have been considerate, she says. But reminders are everywhere.
"Hey Trevor, I heard your dad got blown up by a grenade," a classmate told her oldest son when she took him back to school.
"That's the woman whose husband got killed in Iraq," a woman said too loudly near Barbara, as she cared for horses in Goshen.
EVERY YEAR ON July 20, the Allen family gathers to celebrate three birthdays: Lou's; that of his father, Bob Allen; and that of Lou's third son, Sean. All three birthdays fall on the same day. This year, at the birthday party, the kids played in the pool at their grandparents' home in Chester.
Barbara sat on the front porch with her in-laws, her thoughts on Martinez. She bristled at the idea that some Americans might sympathize with Martinez, because his crime was committed under the duress of war.
Placing the back of her hand under her chin and flipping it, she says, "This is about a guy who is a traitor, who went against everything we believe in."
This is about Lou, who he was, and what she lost. She thinks about the morning of his wake, the funeral home, the phone call.
The military had told her that her husband had died instantly. The man on the phone told her different.
Her husband suffered first, for four hours, in a military hospital somewhere in the Middle East.
While there, he asked about his friend, Phil. Then, becoming aware of his own impending death, Lou Allen began talking about Barbara and their four boys. He knew how much they needed him.
He knew about the void his death would leave when he was gone, Barbara was told.
"That's who he was," she says. "Even while he suffered, he was thinking about us instead of himself."
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News
• Remembering the fallen
A tribute to the local soldiers we have lost.
• 2005 Graduations
Complete listing of graduates, stories and photos.
• Report Card 2005
A report card on our schools. Includes statistics on our local districts.
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Soldier's widow remembers the days before the emptiness
By John Sullivan
Times Herald-Record
jsullivan@th-record.com
The call found Barbara Allen at the funeral home the morning of her husband's wake. A week of nightmares, and the Chester woman had managed to stay standing: First came the news of her husband's death, then the allegation that he and his friend were murdered by one of their own men.
What else could the military possibly tell her?
The call was from Iraq. The man who was beside her husband in his last moments wanted to talk to her. Her husband hadn't died instantly, as she had thought. She listened. Receiver in hand, her legs buckled. Then she collapsed.
ON JUNE 7, 1st Lt. Lou Allen and his friend, Capt. Phil Esposito, died in an explosion at a U.S.-controlled palace in Tikrit, Iraq. Lou Allen was 34. Esposito was 30.
The military has charged Alberto Martinez, a staff sergeant under their command, with their killings. All three served with the New York Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division.
The deaths mark the first case of "fragging," or the killing of officers by one of their own men, in the Iraq War. If found guilty, Martinez could face the death penalty.
There's an investigation into how and why Allen was killed, but no answers.
WHAT WE DO KNOW is that Lou Allen was from Chester. He had four young children, Trevor, Colin, Sean and Jeremy. And he had a wife named Barbara.
A lean blonde, she loves animals, especially dogs and horses. She studied equestrian science in college, cleaned horse stalls, mended fences, hauled hay. She was strong: "A tough guy could kick my a--," she says, "but I'd make him work for it."
Lou Allen was a well-liked science teacher, unafraid to act silly in front of his students. He had a penchant for organizing: the dishes in the dishwasher, just so; the magic markers in his desk sorted according to color; the food on his plate, arranged so nothing was touching.
They met on July 8, 1994, at the Trailsider bar, now called Route 66, in Chester. She remembered him as the boy who passed her in high school, had once sat behind her in an Orange County Community College class: brief encounters of an electric kind.
"Did you ever have people in your life you were just aware of?" she says.
SHE DIDN'T EXPECT the proposal when it came at Lobster Pier about a year later. "I actually thought he was going to dump me, he was acting so weird," she says.
They married on March 23, 1996. Not long afterward, they had their first fight.
He didn't want the hamburger she cooked for him. She fed it to the dog, ran to the bedroom and waited for the fireworks to start.
"Did you just feed my dinner to the dog?" he asked her, before laughing at the answer.
They rarely stayed mad at each other for long.
"Perfect for each other," friends and family agreed.
They had children, one after the other: Trevor, now 6, in 1999, then Colin, 5, Sean, 4, and Jeremy, 1. Eighteen months after the last child was born, Lou, a National Guardsman, volunteered.
You don't have to go to Iraq, not yet, she argued.
I have a duty, he answered.
They spent Memorial Day weekend together before he left for Kuwait and then Iraq. Ten days later, the men from the military showed up at Barbara's door.
Since then, nothing has been the same.
DAYS SWIM BY like dreams: summer holidays, the children's birthdays, the mini-anniversaries she and her husband shared. She wakes up wishing she had died the night before, finds her smile to make it through the day, before another night and the emptiness arrives.
Family outings once defined by T-ball games and walks around the block are now defined by professional grief sessions that leave Trevor, Colin, Sean and Jeremy emotionally charged and questioning.
"Why did the guy just kill Daddy and Phil?"
"Why didn't Daddy run?"
"Did Daddy die in a fire, or did the guy shoot him in the back?"
To some of the questions, she has answers. Others, she will answer when they get older.
THE MAN CHARGED with killing their father was an impostor, "a person pretending to be a soldier, who tricked everybody," she tells her sons.
She tried to stay in their Milford, Pa., home, where the boys attached themselves to the things their father did – the lights he put up, the drawers he put in, the rooms he painted. But when the boys began kissing the walls because their father had painted them, she knew they had to leave.
"Everywhere we looked, we saw him," she says. "Maybe someday that will be comforting, but for now, it's just torture."
She moved back to Orange County, but she couldn't sell Lou's home. She is thinking about turning the Pennsylvania home into a retreat for military families or veterans who need a place to rest, she said.
"At some point in our lives, we all need some place to go."
BARBARA HAS NO place to hide.
She can make it through most days with a smile, on the surface at least, but the media attention has made it hard. She keeps a list of phone numbers from CNN, ABC News and local papers. The phone has quieted for now. But she knows it won't be long before the military decides what to do with Martinez, and it will start to ring again.
Locally, most members of the community have been considerate, she says. But reminders are everywhere.
"Hey Trevor, I heard your dad got blown up by a grenade," a classmate told her oldest son when she took him back to school.
"That's the woman whose husband got killed in Iraq," a woman said too loudly near Barbara, as she cared for horses in Goshen.
EVERY YEAR ON July 20, the Allen family gathers to celebrate three birthdays: Lou's; that of his father, Bob Allen; and that of Lou's third son, Sean. All three birthdays fall on the same day. This year, at the birthday party, the kids played in the pool at their grandparents' home in Chester.
Barbara sat on the front porch with her in-laws, her thoughts on Martinez. She bristled at the idea that some Americans might sympathize with Martinez, because his crime was committed under the duress of war.
Placing the back of her hand under her chin and flipping it, she says, "This is about a guy who is a traitor, who went against everything we believe in."
This is about Lou, who he was, and what she lost. She thinks about the morning of his wake, the funeral home, the phone call.
The military had told her that her husband had died instantly. The man on the phone told her different.
Her husband suffered first, for four hours, in a military hospital somewhere in the Middle East.
While there, he asked about his friend, Phil. Then, becoming aware of his own impending death, Lou Allen began talking about Barbara and their four boys. He knew how much they needed him.
He knew about the void his death would leave when he was gone, Barbara was told.
"That's who he was," she says. "Even while he suffered, he was thinking about us instead of himself."
E-mail this story
Print this story
Subscribe to the Record
Today's top
news headlines
• Real speed limit is in the eye of the ticketer
• Speeding tickets
• Braking time? It depends ...
• Teen makes brief escape from cops
• Man attacked after sticking up for sister
See all of today's news stories.
Online special features
News
• Remembering the fallen
A tribute to the local soldiers we have lost.
• 2005 Graduations
Complete listing of graduates, stories and photos.
• Report Card 2005
A report card on our schools. Includes statistics on our local districts.
Have the top headlines from the Times Herald-Record e-mailed to you every morning. Sign up here.
Have a tip about a news story? Contact THR Managing Editor Meg McGuire at mmcguire@th-record.com or call 346-3041.