Below is posted a column that I recently wrote. But first, here is a long disclaimer about how this column came to be and why you poor, innocent people are being subjected to it at this time:
Every few weeks, the editor of the newspaper where I work has the bad judgement to give me a turn to write a personal column that runs in our Lifestyles section. Usually, I write funny, lighthearted things because I don’t have a lot of really serious or deeply personal points I am dying to discuss in front of our 20,000 readers. That’s because of an odd and little-known truth about the kind of people who go into print journalism: Although we are willing to write things that thousands of people will read, we actually tend to be kind of an introverted and shy bunch. Go ahead and laugh, but it’s true. The kids who grew up to write for a living were most likely nerds who spent a lot of time listening to other people’s conversations and feeling vaguely out of place at parties and stayed up all night in the campus newspaper office. Journalism is the only thing that enables us to feel confident going up to total strangers and asking questions. It’s almost like having a superhero alter ego. Outside of that framework, we’re basically the same geeky, shy kids we always were. (I’m pretty sure this doesn’t hold true for people who go into TV news, but that’s not even remotely the same thing.)
My point is that because of this tendency, writing something about your personal life in the newspaper is a little bit more frightening than writing about anything else. It’s like putting a piece of yourself out in the public eye to be scrutinized and maybe laughed at. So if it’s too personal, you tend to withold it.
But there are also moments when you just have to write about something. When we first learned that Aaron was going to Iraq, I wrote about that, and because of the column, a great many people in the community where I cover schools and government let me know that they were going to be praying for our family. Because of their love and support for me, practically a stranger, it only seemed natural to write a column about what has now happened.
Aaron read the column during our trip to Parris Island and claimed that he loved it, although he may have been lying just to humor me. He also insisted that I post it here. So, if you cry and short out your keyboard, or find something in this column totally objectionable, know that it is Aaron’s fault that you ever had to read it in the first place. The column is always called People and Places and it was originally printed in the Valencia County News-Bulletin in New Mexico on April 2, 2005. Also, for the sake of accuracy, when I wrote the column I still thought I would be going to see Aaron in Bethesda instead of at Parris Island.
Enjoy. I’ll have something real for you to read posted here as soon as possible.

People and Places
By Haley Wachdorf
News-Bulletin Staff Writer

Friday, March 18, was just another day for me. I came to work, wrote a story, went to a school to take some photos, and then went home. I remember that I was in a really happy mood as I was driving down Highway 47 looking at the beautiful countryside and thinking about all the little errands I needed to take care of on Saturday.
I didn’t know that at that very moment on the other side of the world, my brother was gravely injured, lying in a building west of Baghdad waiting for the fighting around him to subside enough that a helicopter could land and take him to a hospital.
It has been about six months since my family learned that Aaron, one of my two Marine brothers, would be deployed to Iraq. Since he left in January, I think each member of my family has visualized what would happen if we ever had to hear news telling us that Aaron had been killed in combat. It’s a morbid thing to do, but somehow it’s impossible not to think about it.
In my vision of that moment I hoped would never come, I knew that I would be told on the phone, most likely by my mother, and that I would know something terrible had happened immediately, because my mother would be crying.
On Saturday morning, just as I was starting in on my second cup of coffee, the phone rang. My husband answered it. He handed the phone to me. It was my mom, and she was crying.
Some people claim that when you get close to dying, your life flashes before your eyes. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that in the moment when I thought Aaron was dead, it was like someone had flipped a switch that turned off all the lights in the world and started a rapid-fire series of images in my mind.
Instead of my kitchen cabinets, which were inches from my face, I saw Aaron when we were little, clinging to the top of the magnolia tree in our yard with his twin brother, Ryan. I saw them walking in front of me on the way to school on cool fall mornings, starting off at a casual walk and then eventually breaking out into a full run, racing one another to the stop sign at the end of our street. I saw them dangling their skinny, tanned legs out of the window of our two-story playhouse, daring one another to jump out into the summer twilight. I saw them land safely and roll around in the grass, holding their sides in hysterical laughter at their brush with gravity.
Then I tried to picture it all without Aaron. Ryan without his brother and best friend Aaron. Kelly, Aaron’s beautiful wife, without Aaron. I tried to see our big loud family, with our marathon meals and poker games and fireworks and inside jokes and constant laughter, only with four kids instead of five.
This is the moment when the nightmare comes true for some families, and my heart breaks for them.
But for me, a few seconds after that moment, the words my mom was saying to me suddenly turned into English again, and I realized that Aaron was alive. The Humvee he was driving in Iraq struck an improvised explosive device planted by insurgents, and Aaron was injured in the explosion. His leg had to be amputated below the knee after he was taken to Germany by helicopter.
It’s not good news. The idea that someone would lie in wait to hurt or kill someone you love so much is absolutely hateful. Knowing that my brother will have to go through life without his leg makes me sad.
But I’m thankful that we don’t have to go through life without him.
In the next week or so, I’m going to travel to National Naval Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to see Aaron. He is recuperating marvelously and will be learning to walk with a prosthetic leg soon.
When I see him, I’m not sure if I’m going to hug him or beat him senseless with hospital pillows for frightening all of us so much, but I know that I’m going to talk to him for hours and hours.
Because I still can.