Photo by courtesy Ranjel family Max, Julissa, Steven, and Erica Ranjel pose in front of Steven’s helicopter before his deployment.

THIS EDITION Volume 21, No. 4 May 01, 2003

Front Page

Military family accepts challenge, again

In December 2002, Julissa Ranjel, who works at the SPAR office at North Lake College, received a call that no military wife likes to receive. On the other end of the line was her husband, Steven Ranjel. He had just received confirmation of his mission: he was going to leave for Iraq.

Steven joined the military when he was just eighteen. He fought his first war when he was 21 and the father of two. Ten years have passed since then. He is now a sergeant in the army who has received certification for both Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters. He is returning to the same region to complete a mission left unfinished.

This time, however, his kids are in their teens. Max is thirteen and Erica fifteen. For Julissa, the situation is easier than before because this time,unlike last, she supports and understands the reasons for war. In 1991 she was an angry, hurt and scared young mother of two.

Now her kids have grown up. They ask questions. They understand. They watch. They react. In her son’s words, “This time around I’m not a baby. I know what’s happening. I see the news.”

In early December, the Army told them that her husband would either go to Bosnia or Iraq. Then, at the end of December, it was certain. Steven and his division would be leaving the United States for Iraq.

When Julissa got the confirmation news, the moment for her was “Surreal. Even though you are expecting it and you are prepared, it’s still shocking,” she said. SPAR was very accommodating. Julissa was able to get away from work and complete all of the required paperwork before her husband’s departure.

They had a family meeting. The kids were understanding but they were a little shocked and asked a lot of questions. They talked with their kids. They talked and talked and talked until “The reality finally sunk in,” Julissa said. “We are strong. We can stay together as a family. We need to try to be as normal as possible and let him do his job,” she told her kids.

Max who is very close to his dad, will miss all the “guy things” : fishing, hunting, archery, camping. He worries that maybe his dad won’t be here for Christmas. For the time being, Julissa’s brothers have come forward to act as role models for Max for as long as it takes for Steven to come back home.

Erica, unlike her brother, is more subdued and quiet. She deals with the whole situation much better when Julissa shares the information with her rather than actively following the war news herself.

Despite their courage in dealing with Steven’s absence, the family will have to make a lot of re-adjustments. “For the soldiers the time stops but for us it doesn’t,” Julissa said. The soldiers might leave their kids as infants and come back to find them walking and talking. They would try to deal with this ordeal by sending a lot of pictures, writing a lot of letters and doing a lot of sharing.

For Steven and his division, living in Iraq is fraught with its own challenges and sacrifices. The troops are not able to shower every day. Often they are in the same clothes for numerous days. They eat pre-packaged food called Meals Ready To Eat (MRE). In 1991, the troops had no ability to heat the food but this time they do.

When Steven came back from the Gulf War in 1991, he was pale, thin and exhausted. It took him some time to get accustomed to the food here in U.S. He would joke about the food with his wife and say, “It would taste right once I put some sand in it.”

Simple amenities of life like toothpaste, toilet paper and shampoo are precious commodities for the troops in Iraq. They stand in line for hours in the hot desert sun before they can get any of these items.

According to Julissa, despite advances in technology, it is not easy for families to communicate with their loved ones. This is because sometimes there are no computers available in the remote desert areas. In order to make phone calls, the soldiers stand in line for hours just so they can hear their families talk for as little as five minutes.

Nevertheless, Julissa believes there is more support from the Army this time than in 1991. The military conducts information sessions for the families to ensure that they are fully informed. Legal help is also available. The Army also has a buddy system, called the Family Support System, under which it pairs families with others in their area for support.

The other day, Julissa got a call from a man who represented the Army. It was his job to call a list of families and make sure that if they had any questions, whether legal, financial or health-related, they got the answers.

Even the Red Cross came and communicated with the soldiers’ families. The Red Cross helps the families get in touch with their loved ones in case there is a death or birth. Other times, when the families have not heard from their loved one in months, the Red Cross plays a crucial role in locating the soldier and informing a very worried family of the soldier’s condition.

In Julissa’s case, some of her husband’s friends who are not deployed overseas call up and check up on the family. She has also had a lot of help from her own family and friends. Even on campus a lot of people have told her that they are there for her.

Julissa feels that watching the events unfold in Iraq can be very overwhelming and shocking. She reminisced about the time when she sat with her two kids in her bedroom and they watched as Baghdad was being bombed. It was unreal. Julissa’s kids were stunned. They had to remind themselves what they were witnessing was real and not a movie.

“No one wants war. We all want peace. All we could think of was what if we were in their place, how would we survive,” Julissa said, talking about the women and children in Iraq.

So how does Steven make sense of this war? He feels that he needs to go to Iraq, do what he has been trained to do and solve all the problems facing the Iraqi people because “this way he does not have to worry about his children or his grandchildren having to go back over, ” Steven said to Julissa.

The family is very proud of Steven. The kids are proud of their dad’s selflessness. He always puts the needs of others over his own. “Some people call it bravery, courage, friendship; however you want to put it,” Julissa said. What impresses her the most about her husband is that he is a very giving person. “It’s amazing to sit back and watch him. I wish I could be that way,” she said. Her husband is a hyperactive, adventure-loving, people person who is always willing to go do things. Julissa’s life “has never been boring” with Steven.

Julissa’s advice to the families whose loved ones are going to Iraq is to exercise a lot of patience. There are times when the troops and their families mentally and emotionally prepare themselves of the departure but find that there are delays or changes. Furthermore, there is a lot of secret information that the military cannot share with the families. So the families have no idea about the whereabouts of their loved ones. It gets very hard and frustrating.

Julissa does not know how long her husband will be in Iraq. The last time when Steven was supposed to come back from Kuwait, he gave her twelve different dates and none of them were accurate.

The hardest part for the families, according to Julissa, is the not knowing: not knowing how safe their loved ones are, not knowing what their missions are, not knowing when they are coming back.

“You have to keep going for them. You have to keep going for your kids,” Julissa said. According to her, this life is one big lesson. One lesson she has learned is that you do what you have to do to get through a difficult time. The other is, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“You can always find some good no matter how bad something is and you take that little bit, even if it is a little glimmer of hope and you go with it. And that is how I go through,” Julissa said.

Students at North Lake have approached Julissa and asked: how can we help? How can we send packages? How can we send letters to the troops? She thinks that the soldiers would really appreciate people sending amenities but more importantly, Steven loves to hear that students at NLC came and told Julissa, “Tell him thank you. Thank you for doing his job.” This thank you, according to Julissa, means a whole world to the troops.