Shorty
.
Member since 5/05 30390 total posts
Name:
really
|
I'm such a baby...I'm bawling
 This is so sweet....and why I say a  for all the soldiers and their families. 
source
Levittown Sgt. renews vows during 18-day leave from Iraq
BY KATIE THOMAS
[email protected]
11:27 PM EDT, August 12, 2007
The tender voice of folk singer Alison Krauss spilled out of the speakers at the North Lindenhurst firehouse as the bride and groom danced in slow circles across the floor.
"It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart," Krauss sang as Army Sgt. Mark Dennington, in his dress blues, held the hand of his wife, Lori, yesterday afternoon. "Without saying a word, you can light up the dark."
"When You Say Nothing At All" was an appropriate song for Mark, a 26-year-old who lets his mischievous eyes do most of the talking. There was so much that was not said in that moment, and yet so much that was probably on the minds of the 100 or so family and friends in the banquet hall.
For one, Mark will return to Baghdad in less than a week. He is home in Levittown on 18-day leave from his tour in Iraq. Mark's brother, Jason Dennington, 25, is also an Army sergeant serving in Iraq. He tried his best to get home for the special occasion, but he wasn't granted leave until next month.
Despite the diamond tiara in Lori's hair and her father's teary-eyed toast, this was not a real wedding. Lori and Mark were simply renewing their vows before family and friends -- one year after they first married alone and on the fly in Colorado Springs.
Love is already an impulsive act. But in the crucible of war, it can lead some to make drastic choices.
Mark and Lori met on a magical summer night -- June 20, 2006. He was on leave, visiting his parents. Lori, who lives in Lindenhurst, was tending bar at a nearby pub. The two got to talking, and when her shift ended, they left together. Mark bought a lottery ticket and won $500. She told him it was his lucky night.
Within weeks, Lori had moved to Colorado Springs, where Mark was stationed. He knew a deployment to Iraq was imminent. When you might get shipped to war, Mark said, "there's a little bit more of -- not added -- but maybe just the fear of losing that person. If you really love them that much, you know, you should be together."
Justice of the peace
Six weeks after they met, Lori Herman and Mark Dennington exchanged vows before a justice of the peace. One month later, Mark got his orders. By October of 2006, he was in Iraq, where he oversees the protective gear for chemical, biological and nuclear warfare in southern Baghdad.
Mark and Lori's news came as a shock to both families.
"We never thought she was getting married," said Lori's mother, Anne Marie Herman. Lori had had serious boyfriends before, but never like this. "She was like, 'This is the one.'"
But after the initial surprise wore off, Herman said, she relaxed. It helped that she liked Mark. "You've got to support your kids, no matter what," she said.
In Levittown, the news came harder. "Crushed," said Pat Dennington, Mark's mom, describing her reaction. Their marriage meant that Mark, who has five other siblings and dozens of cousins, would not have a large family wedding. And Pat Dennington, who served in the Air Force, worried whether Mark was marrying for the right reasons. "People are away from home. They want that closeness with someone," his mother said.
With Mark in Iraq, Lori moved back to her parents' house in Lindenhurst, where she adjusted to her new identity as an Army wife. The couple's relationship deepened through text messages, e-mails and expensive phone calls. Lori sent weekly care packages -- Dinty Moore stews, Crystal Light drink mix and Hamburger Helper -- to Mark and Jason. She worried so much that she rarely got more than four hours sleep. And she served as Mark's emissary at Dennington family gatherings.
"I went to so many of their family functions by myself, which was torture," Lori said. Sometimes, she'd go to parties when it had been days since she had heard from Mark. "You try to sit there and enjoy yourself with family and you're meeting all these new people. And all I want is my husband to call."
Learning to share her son
The Denningtons welcomed her into the family, but Mark's mother acknowledged that Lori's presence was a source of tension: "I have to share him," she said. "I'm learning to deal with that."
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Mark tried not to count the days and suggested Lori do the same. "What I tell her is every day's a Monday."
There's an art to choosing when to take leave. Every soldier who serves a 15-month tour gets a single 18-day break. If you take your leave too early, the wait until the end of your deployment is unbearable, Mark said. Other soldiers had taken leaves for big holidays, or birthdays, or the births of their children. But Mark held out for a single date: July 31, 2007. Their one-year anniversary.
In anticipation, he and Lori decided to throw a party to give their families the wedding they had missed. Lori ordered up invitations. They had a place -- the North Lindenhurst firehouse, where her father, Nick Herman, is a volunteer. But because nothing in war is certain, the date had to remain a mystery. "To Be Announced," the invitations read.
Mark missed it by one day, arriving home Aug. 1.
No matter. Lori and his father, Jim Dennington, met him at Kennedy Airport, where he arrived on a commercial flight from Atlanta. Mark said he tried to play it cool as he walked off the plane and into the gate.
"And then my father and my wife were standing there and it was like, wow, finally home," he said.
Between visits to family and friends, trips to the original Nathan's hot dog stand in Coney Island and late nights in local bars, Lori and Mark have tried to enjoy the ordinary things. Lori can finally sleep through the night. And Mark relishes driving down the street with the windows down, not worrying about roadside bombs.
Yesterday, as Lori and Mark accepted the well wishes of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, there were many reminders of why the day was bittersweet. Jason called from Iraq and the phone was passed around the room. Next to the dance floor, someone had set a table for one -- a symbolic place setting meant to serve as a reminder of soldiers like Jason, who are serving overseas. And then there was Mark's crew cut and dress uniform.
He and Lori danced on borrowed time, the clock ticking until he would again be on a plane bound for Baghdad.
Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.
|
