Military Couple Finds Ways to Be Together
(April 19, 2009) |
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Army Lt. Col. Hailey Clancy,
left, and her husband, Army Maj. Michael Clancy,
share a laugh while flying to Camp Striker,
Iraq, Aug. 8, 2008. The couple has served two
deployments to Iraq together. Courtesy photo |
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BAGHDAD, April 14, 2009 –
June 6, 1998, the 54th anniversary of D-Day,
probably was a day like any other that summer.
There's a good chance it was sunny in a small
town in New York state outside of Fort Drum,
where two young Army captains met for their own
rendezvous with destiny.
A month later, they went on a date to see
“Saving Private Ryan.” Eleven years later, Lt.
Col. Hailey Clancy, of Mesa, Ariz., and Maj.
Michael Clancy of Bronx, N.Y., are happily
married and serving together as part of the 1st
Armored Division's 2nd “Iron” Brigade Combat
Team. They have been deployed to Iraq for a
year.
Like most military couples, Hailey Clancy, who
serves as the brigade's logistics officer, and
Michael Clancy, the 40th Engineer Battalion
plans and operations officer in charge and the
brigade engineer, have not always been able to
stay together, but try to as
much as possible.
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“We dated for about five years before we
got married,” they both said together -- not in unison, but
with the familiarity of a story told more than once, a story
that consisted of being stationed in different places
throughout the next five years and spending lots of time on
the highway each weekend to see each other.
Two years after they met, Hailey Clancy left Fort Drum to
attend graduate school at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Michael Clancy stayed behind for a year and moved even
farther away for a job as an active Army advisor to a
reserve component unit in Schukyll County, Pa.
“For about three years, we were two-and-a-half hours apart
by driving,” Michael Clancy said. “We kind of leapfrogged
each other: she went to grad school, I went to Pennsylvania,
she went to West Point, then I went to West Point,” he
added.
In the summer of 2002, Hailey Clancy moved to West Point,
N.Y., to take a position as an instructor in the chemistry
and life science department at the U.S. Military Academy.
“We had Interstate 81 pretty much memorized,” Michael Clancy
said with a laugh, talking about a highway that runs north
and south from New York to Pennsylvania and beyond.
In early 2003, Michael, who graduated from the U.S. Military
Academy 10 years prior, was assigned to an engineer duty of
constructing the new gymnasium at the academy, and at last
the couple was together again. After three years of
long-distance correspondence and weekend drives, they were
engaged for six months, then were married July 12, 2003 on
the USMA campus.
Although distance hadn't kept them too far apart for most of
their time before marriage, it wasn't much more than a year
after they were married that Operation Iraqi Freedom began
and required one of them to deploy to Iraq.
“We met right after I had just gotten back from Bosnia in
1998,” Hailey Clancy said. “So the whole time that we were
dating, we weren't deployed. But as soon as we got married,
between the two of us, we've been deployed to Iraq five
times.”
Being flexible with assignments and volunteering to deploy
together has enabled the couple to be together for most of
the last five years. The first deployment, however, was
solo, and Michael Clancy left for Iraq in 2004 while his
wife stayed behind at West Point.
“I lived that life of being the person back home when your
husband's deployed and you're doing those 15-minute phone
calls at night,” she said. “Sometimes it's just frustrating,
because you're like, ‘What is it like there?' and he doesn't
want to talk about Iraq because he's tired, but I want to
understand better what it's like where he is.”
After Michael returned from his first tour in Iraq, the
couple moved to the 3rd Corps Support Command in Wiesbaden,
Germany. Michael Clancy was able to enjoy a short five
months of dwell time before they both packed up with 3rd
COSCOM and headed back downrange. To them, it was just all
part of what they needed to do to stay together as much as
possible -- something that Michael Clancy said he believes
is important for any military couple.
“I would advise other military couples to do whatever you
can to stay together, because you'll never know when in the
future you might be forced apart,” he said. “So if you're
given an option that allows you to stay together, then take
advantage of that opportunity and stay together.”
After their deployment with 3rd COSCOM, the Clancys moved
southwest to Baumholder and joined the ranks of the Iron
Brigade in June 2007. In April 2008, they found themselves
in Iraq together again, this time working closer than ever
before.
“This time we‘ve worked together a lot,” Hailey Clancy said.
“I'm the S-4; he's the engineer, so all of the basing issues
we've worked on together. Professionally, we spend a lot of
time together. People probably think we're talking about
personal stuff, but 90 percent of the time, we're talking
about base closures or base transfers.”
“It's a little weird sometimes when we get mad at each other
professionally,” Michael Clancy said with a smile.
“You have to be able to separate the personal and
professional, but it's impossible to separate them
entirely,” he added. “I mean, my best friend is on the
brigade staff, so I get to know what's going on in the
brigade building.”
“And I get a good idea of how things are perceived down at
the units,” Hailey Clancy said. “I get an honest opinion
from somebody.”
The perks of being deployed with your spouse are great, to
be sure, but not entirely without their drawbacks, the
Clancys said.
“It's nice because we have no roommate issues,” Hailey
Clancy said with a smile. “Emotionally, it's easier, but
technically it's harder. There's no one back in the rear to
ship you stuff or manage your stuff. Our car is in storage.
All of our bills are forwarded to Iraq, so all of our
paperwork we have to handle down here, because there's no
one back there taking care of business for us,” she said.
They both plan on staying in the military, and have worked
out new assignments near each other in New York. Beyond the
next assignment, they said, they continue to plan to stay
together as much as possible while furthering their Army
careers.
“I think with dual-military couples, you have to choose
either to stay together or go for those assignments you'd
really like to have,” Michael Clancy said. “If we had both
wanted our ideal assignments, we wouldn't be together. You
have to take whatever you can to be together.” | |
By Army Sgt. Daniel Nichols
Multinational Division Baghdad, 1st Armored Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team public affairs office
Special to American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2009
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