The Emporia Gazette

February 13, 2012

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For Donnie Bell, coming home was an even better experience than he’d hoped it would be.

Bell has been in Afghanistan since March, when he was called back to active duty with the U.S. Army to serve a tour of duty at Bagram Air Force Base, about 25 miles north of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

He had served three years in the active Army, beginning in 2004, and had completed a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005-06.

This call-up was different.

“This is just the first year with kids,” his wife, Stephanie, explained. “... He left when she was 9 months old and four months before he was due.”

The couple are parents of 14-month-old Aubrey and 3-month-old Garren, who met his father for the first time earlier this month.

A lot had happened since Bell boarded a plane for the first leg of a long trip to Afghanistan.

“It’s pretty hard not to be here to see all the little and big events,” Donnie Bell said. “I wasn’t here when she first started walking. I wasn’t here when he was born.”

He regrets having to leave all of the day-to-day responsibility on his wife’s shoulders while he’s half-a-world away, and gave credit to her for being able to manage the family so well.

“She’s been taking care of the babies and working a part-time job, too,” he said. “She’s made a lot of sacrifices.”

Stephanie Bell, on the other hand, was simply happy to have her husband home. Colorful poster-sized signs greeted him at Kansas City International airport when he landed on Aug. 2 and at their home west of Emporia; the signs revealed enthusiastically just how happy the family was to have him back, if only for two weeks: “Always under the same stars, finally under the same roof” was one of the heartfelt expressions that welcomed him home.

“It’s always awkward when you come home and you’ve been away so long,” he said.

He needn’t have worried, although he had, about the reception he’d get from Aubrey. It was almost as though he had never left. Apparently, her dad did not feel like a stranger when he finally got to hold her in his arms.

“She laid her head down on my shoulder and went to sleep,” he said.

Technology may have helped keep him and his children connected. In addition to e-mails between Stephanie and Donnie Bell, telephone communications have improved considerably in recent years.

“I try to call every two or three days so I can talk to my babies and my wife,” Donnie said.

Perhaps as a result of hearing his father’s voice, Garren “warmed up to me pretty quick,” he added.

He’d been surprised how quickly Aubrey had developed into a little girl from a baby.

“When I came home, she was very different,” he said. “She wears bracelets now.”

She collects her mother’s jewelry and tucks it away in her own toy box.

And she’s fascinated by shoes, and by changing them frequently.

“She’ll bring you another pair of shoes and have you put them on,” he said.

Both children have been sleeping better since he came home, too.

“The night before he came home, it was like tag team — every-other hour,” Stephanie Bell said of the children’s habit of waking up during the night.

Now, both Aubrey and Garren have been sleeping through the night, and their father was pleased to find that Garren, too, has a happy disposition.

“It’s very nice to be home,” he said. “It’s really going to be hard to leave.”

Bell’s next trip to Afghanistan could be his last tour of duty until he fulfills his reserve obligation in late 2012.

Because of the downturn into the economy, Bell said, the military has undergone a surge of enlistments and may not need to rely as much on activating reserve and National Guard units to overseas posts.

“They’re not near as hard-up for people,” he said. “People are joining right now.”

Bell will return to Bagram at the beginning of next week and expects to stay there until mid- to late-February.

There, he will resume his job with Task Force Paladin, a counter-IED unit against the improvised explosive devices, or booby traps, used to injure and kill the troops and the citizens of Afghanistan.

“I mainly supply everybody so they’ve got what they need,” he said.

Afghanis are employed on the base at Bagram and work alongside the U.S. troops stationed there.

The nationals primarily live in homes made of mud. Some are farmers and a few, like one of the locals that work on the base, raise grapes. It is, Bell said, a poor area.

“A lot of them really appreciate us being over there,” he said. “We pretty much support the families. ... We give them money and it’s a steady job. A lot are good workers.”

Most live on a diet heavy with chicken — “I think their favorite food has got to be chicken,” he remarked — with breads and rice running a close second.

“A lot are underweight. There’s very few people bigger than me,” said Donnie Bell, who is tall and slim.

The foods are tasty, though prepared differently than in the U.S. and containing a lot of grease.

“The food was good,” he said, before adding a caveat, “It’s really rough on the digestive system.”

Bell said that many of the Afghanis likely would be in danger if the United States left their country, despite its having become more stable overall. The nature of the dissenting groups foments fighting that seems to abate for a time before erupting again.

“It’s gotten better,” he said of the total picture. “I don’t know how much an outside source can stop the problem.”

The Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim group that had controlled Afghanistan until U.S. military intervention beginning in 2001, again is trying to make headway against the more moderate Afghanis that had taken control of the government.

Bell is concerned about the Afghani workers at the base who have become friends during his tour of duty there. The benefit they receive with a steady job and income could become a double-edged sword.

“Working for the military is also dangerous for them,” he said. “I think it just kind of goes back and forth. ... It’s going to go back and forth for a while.”

In the interim, the Americans and the Afghanis work together at the base and develop relationships.

“They actually are friends,” he said. “They’ve sent home jewelry for my wife.”

The gifts are pretty and handmade, Stephanie Bell said, and much appreciated for the effort the Afghanis have made on behalf of their American friend.

“They’re very caring people,” he said. “They’re pretty nice to work with.”