If you haven’t met Ingrid & Patrick, they are the Navy/Marine couple that became engaged using morse code jewelry’s “Marry me” bracelet. Click here if you missed it. Below is an email I just received from Patrick. They had hoped to marry in the fall of 2010 unless Ingrid got called up to serve in Afghanistan.
The call came.
Here’s his unedited email:
Annie,
Some bad news….
Ingrid got a call last Tuesday morning from her command at her hospital. She has orders to augment an Army medical unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The US Navy often sends their personnel as Individual Augmentees (IAs) to Army or Marine Corps units engaged in the Global War on Terrorism in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She’ll start a month of training in January and then deploy for about 6 months as nurse a trauma hospital in Kandahar. It’s pretty intense work, but Ingrid has experience with traumatic cases working in the OIF/OEF ward on the east coast. This will just be a different part experience as she cares for soldiers and Marines a bit earlier in their road to recovery.
We have to delay our wedding a bit and push it back to January 2011 instead of October 2010. This will be a bit of a role reversal as I’ll be home in California and Ingrid will be deployed to a combat zone. Ingrid has made it through 2 of my deployments, so making it through one of hers shouldn’t be that bad.
Just thought we’d keep you updated. Ingrid’s going to keep the bracelet on through this deployment too. It fits over her latex gloves well…her engagement ring might stay home for the deployment though.