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Love letters from war
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By RYAN PFEIL
H&N Staff Writer
The couple sat in Yvonne’s car in front of Stuttgart Air Base’s main gate. It was as far as she could go.
Her fiancé Melvin “Woody” Woodward stepped out of the car and walked to the gate. Tears pooled in his eyes. When he got through the gate, he began to run along side the fence, keeping pace with Yvonne’s car as she drove away.
He climbed the fence and watched her car’s taillights until they disappeared. Then he climbed down, walked to his plane and joined his battalion of the 249th Engineers.
He wrote to her the next day, after the battalion arrived at its base in the Saudi Arabian desert, their base for Operation Desert Shield. The overall mission was to keep Iraq from invading Kuwait. The Klamath Falls couple recently recalled that day in December 1990, nearly 18 years ago. The Woodwards have stacks of handwritten letters from that time, love letters written from the desert, from war.
It would be six months before Yvonne and Melvin saw each other, and communication was slow.
E-mail and the Internet were in limited use, but soldiers and their families often could access it at military base communication centers. But Yvonne and Melvin were engaged, not married, and she wasn’t allowed access to the military base in Bruchsal, Germany.
So during Melvin’s six-month tour, the couple turned to written letters, sometimes writing every day for weeks at a time.
Falling in love
Yvonne and Melvin were introduced by a mutual friend at a club in Bruchsal.
Melvin was introduced to Yvonne by his nickname, “Sgt. Woody.”
“I never really looked at her that much until we were properly introduced,” Melvin said in an interview from his home in Klamath Falls. “I haven’t been able to shake her off since.”
They took a liking to each other and enjoyed each other’s company. He taught her to two-step at the club. They were inseparable. They went to clubs, danced and tagged along with their friends.
A couple months later, on Yvonne’s 25th birthday, they stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower, watching a sunlit Paris below them. Melvin turned to Yvonne.
“What do you think about getting engaged?” he asked.
“German girls don’t get married right away,” she responded.
He tried again on the ground, and again a couple months later. She finally said yes.
Desert Shield
At 8 p.m. a day or two before Thanksgiving 1990, Melvin was called into his sergeant major’s office on base.
Three-fourths of the base’s soldiers could not be deployed to the Middle East because of paperwork status. Melvin was in the remaining 25 percent.
“I’ve got some bad news,” the sergeant major said.
“Don’t say it,” Melvin replied.
He left for the Middle East three weeks later.
The desert
Melvin arrived at Tent City after a stop in Rome. After refueling, the plane crossed the Swiss Alps, the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt before crossing the Red Sea and landing in Saudi Arabia. From there, he and other soldiers began a two-hour bus ride.
“The buses smelled like camels were riding them before us,” he wrote.
After almost 11 hours, Melvin and his battalion finally fell asleep at 5:30 in the morning. Melvin awoke six hours later, and began the first in a series of letters, listening to a mix tape Yvonne gave him before he left.
“I listened to it when I was in (the) plane and again this morning and right now,” he wrote.
He started and ended his day in Tent City.
“To give you an idea (of) how many people are here, there are well over 400 tents,” he wrote a few days later. “Twenty people per tent, and there is about 3,000 people who come in around the clock all day.”
Soldiers were ordered to drink at least three bottles of water a day, with an additional one at night.
“And yes, they wake us up just to drink it,” he wrote.
Melvin’s daily duties involved numerous back and forth trips to the Persian Gulf coast. He picked up parts for equipment on base, worked in the machine shop and assisted disabled vehicles in the sand. This seemed to be an especially grueling task.
“Gotta go recover a truck,” he wrote Yvonne on March 24, 1991. “Write more later.”
The next day, he wrote again: “Work last night was a pain. A truck ran out of fuel in front of a gas station but had no money or a card to get any fuel. So I took some fuel to him and played hell trying to get his truck started again. But I managed it and finally got home around 2 a.m.”
Afterward, unable to sleep, he’d taken a walk outside in the cool air. The sand swished beneath his feet while the stars winked above him.
“Watched for the falling ones to wish myself (to) where I belong,” he wrote.
At home
Three weeks after Melvin’s departure, Yvonne had a terrible cold.
“I’m coughing like hell and my nose is (cold) and I’m sneezing,” she wrote on Dec. 27, 1990.
The fact that she was a nurse at a nearby hospital only made things worse.
There were hard days ahead for the new fiancée.
“Do you know that life is losing sense, more or less?” she wrote. “I can’t see a reason to do things. There’s no fun in it.”
The new year rapidly approached. It only made things worse.
“Just the last day ahead,” she wrote Dec. 30, 1990. “Hope this will be the only one that I spend without you.”
On New Year’s Eve, she stayed in, watching TV in the community room of her apartment complex. Earlier, she looked through some pictures from a friend in Paris, taken the day of Melvin’s two proposals.
“One shows me in my evening dress — that one you never saw me in,” she wrote. “The other one is you and me, arm in arm, down in the other room … I hope only one thing this year, that you come back safe and in one piece.”
Still, the normally spirited nurse found ways to occupy her time. She frequented clubs, especially the Ice Haus, spending time with numerous mutual friends. She swam in competitions and played soccer in the spring. She barbecued with friends, and bought tickets to a Kenny Rogers concert.
“Can’t you be back on this day? I don’t want to go without you!” she wrote in April 1991.
To send a single letter, Yvonne had to pay five marks, the normal rate, comparable to about $2.50. To save money, she would write several days worth of material before sending it, almost like a journal of her daily routines. Phone calls were difficult to make because of the time change and scheduling conflicts. The expensive letters had to continue instead.
“The phone call I’m waiting like hell for is just a phantom,” she wrote.
Soon, this would change.
The phone call
Before successfully phoning Yvonne, Melvin experienced two unsuccessful attempts. The third time, he realized he did not have enough money to make the call. A nearby sergeant responded, handing him a credit card.
Melvin called the hospital, knowing Yvonne was at work. The connection was filled with static.
“Sister Yvonne,” a familiar voice on the other end said.
“Guess who?” Melvin said.
“Woody …”
For most of their 15-minute conversation, Yvonne cried.
“The two things I got out without bawling were ‘Where are you?’ and ‘When do you come home?’ ” Yvonne said during an interview from her home in Klamath Falls.
Melvin wrote to her soon after.
“Even though there were tears in your voice, it was still good to hear you,” he wrote. “And it felt good to know that you know I’m fine and still alive and in one piece.”
Homecoming
Near the war’s end, Yvonne started to grow anxious about Melvin’s homecoming. He felt the same way, especially after avoiding a landmine explosion and nearly being shot by mistake by an allied helicopter.
“I’ll be there on the 3rd or 4th of May, depending on what day we fly,” he wrote. “So getting ready here is going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth every minute, cause it gets me closer to you.”
Yvonne moved weeks before he came home. The apartment was disappointing, especially in terms of size.
“If you think about my room up here, it’s only one-third of it,” she wrote. “I really have problems (getting) all my things into it.”
More than anything, she wanted him there to make her laugh. She lacked entertainment outside their circle of friends. It seemed not very many of them would listen. They were tired from work.
The 249th engineers arrived in Stuttgart in May. Yvonne walked to the air base’s gate, the same spot where she and Melvin had sat in their car six months earlier. She approached the gate guard.
“My fiancé’s supposed to come home today,” she said. “If I could get in.”
Ignoring procedure, he let her pass. She walked through the gate. She saw Melvin, dirty, tired and 43 pounds lighter. She walked into his embrace, ignoring the smells of desert and sweat.
“Next thing I know, I held him,” Yvonne said in an interview. “I kind of have a blackout of that moment.”
He had made it home, just in time for the Kenny Rogers concert.
Her fiancé Melvin “Woody” Woodward stepped out of the car and walked to the gate. Tears pooled in his eyes. When he got through the gate, he began to run along side the fence, keeping pace with Yvonne’s car as she drove away.
He climbed the fence and watched her car’s taillights until they disappeared. Then he climbed down, walked to his plane and joined his battalion of the 249th Engineers.
He wrote to her the next day, after the battalion arrived at its base in the Saudi Arabian desert, their base for Operation Desert Shield. The overall mission was to keep Iraq from invading Kuwait. The Klamath Falls couple recently recalled that day in December 1990, nearly 18 years ago. The Woodwards have stacks of handwritten letters from that time, love letters written from the desert, from war.
It would be six months before Yvonne and Melvin saw each other, and communication was slow.
E-mail and the Internet were in limited use, but soldiers and their families often could access it at military base communication centers. But Yvonne and Melvin were engaged, not married, and she wasn’t allowed access to the military base in Bruchsal, Germany.
So during Melvin’s six-month tour, the couple turned to written letters, sometimes writing every day for weeks at a time.
Falling in love
Yvonne and Melvin were introduced by a mutual friend at a club in Bruchsal.
Melvin was introduced to Yvonne by his nickname, “Sgt. Woody.”
“I never really looked at her that much until we were properly introduced,” Melvin said in an interview from his home in Klamath Falls. “I haven’t been able to shake her off since.”
They took a liking to each other and enjoyed each other’s company. He taught her to two-step at the club. They were inseparable. They went to clubs, danced and tagged along with their friends.
A couple months later, on Yvonne’s 25th birthday, they stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower, watching a sunlit Paris below them. Melvin turned to Yvonne.
“What do you think about getting engaged?” he asked.
“German girls don’t get married right away,” she responded.
He tried again on the ground, and again a couple months later. She finally said yes.
Desert Shield
At 8 p.m. a day or two before Thanksgiving 1990, Melvin was called into his sergeant major’s office on base.
Three-fourths of the base’s soldiers could not be deployed to the Middle East because of paperwork status. Melvin was in the remaining 25 percent.
“I’ve got some bad news,” the sergeant major said.
“Don’t say it,” Melvin replied.
He left for the Middle East three weeks later.
The desert
Melvin arrived at Tent City after a stop in Rome. After refueling, the plane crossed the Swiss Alps, the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt before crossing the Red Sea and landing in Saudi Arabia. From there, he and other soldiers began a two-hour bus ride.
“The buses smelled like camels were riding them before us,” he wrote.
After almost 11 hours, Melvin and his battalion finally fell asleep at 5:30 in the morning. Melvin awoke six hours later, and began the first in a series of letters, listening to a mix tape Yvonne gave him before he left.
“I listened to it when I was in (the) plane and again this morning and right now,” he wrote.
He started and ended his day in Tent City.
“To give you an idea (of) how many people are here, there are well over 400 tents,” he wrote a few days later. “Twenty people per tent, and there is about 3,000 people who come in around the clock all day.”
Soldiers were ordered to drink at least three bottles of water a day, with an additional one at night.
“And yes, they wake us up just to drink it,” he wrote.
Melvin’s daily duties involved numerous back and forth trips to the Persian Gulf coast. He picked up parts for equipment on base, worked in the machine shop and assisted disabled vehicles in the sand. This seemed to be an especially grueling task.
“Gotta go recover a truck,” he wrote Yvonne on March 24, 1991. “Write more later.”
The next day, he wrote again: “Work last night was a pain. A truck ran out of fuel in front of a gas station but had no money or a card to get any fuel. So I took some fuel to him and played hell trying to get his truck started again. But I managed it and finally got home around 2 a.m.”
Afterward, unable to sleep, he’d taken a walk outside in the cool air. The sand swished beneath his feet while the stars winked above him.
“Watched for the falling ones to wish myself (to) where I belong,” he wrote.
At home
Three weeks after Melvin’s departure, Yvonne had a terrible cold.
“I’m coughing like hell and my nose is (cold) and I’m sneezing,” she wrote on Dec. 27, 1990.
The fact that she was a nurse at a nearby hospital only made things worse.
There were hard days ahead for the new fiancée.
“Do you know that life is losing sense, more or less?” she wrote. “I can’t see a reason to do things. There’s no fun in it.”
The new year rapidly approached. It only made things worse.
“Just the last day ahead,” she wrote Dec. 30, 1990. “Hope this will be the only one that I spend without you.”
On New Year’s Eve, she stayed in, watching TV in the community room of her apartment complex. Earlier, she looked through some pictures from a friend in Paris, taken the day of Melvin’s two proposals.
“One shows me in my evening dress — that one you never saw me in,” she wrote. “The other one is you and me, arm in arm, down in the other room … I hope only one thing this year, that you come back safe and in one piece.”
Still, the normally spirited nurse found ways to occupy her time. She frequented clubs, especially the Ice Haus, spending time with numerous mutual friends. She swam in competitions and played soccer in the spring. She barbecued with friends, and bought tickets to a Kenny Rogers concert.
“Can’t you be back on this day? I don’t want to go without you!” she wrote in April 1991.
To send a single letter, Yvonne had to pay five marks, the normal rate, comparable to about $2.50. To save money, she would write several days worth of material before sending it, almost like a journal of her daily routines. Phone calls were difficult to make because of the time change and scheduling conflicts. The expensive letters had to continue instead.
“The phone call I’m waiting like hell for is just a phantom,” she wrote.
Soon, this would change.
The phone call
Before successfully phoning Yvonne, Melvin experienced two unsuccessful attempts. The third time, he realized he did not have enough money to make the call. A nearby sergeant responded, handing him a credit card.
Melvin called the hospital, knowing Yvonne was at work. The connection was filled with static.
“Sister Yvonne,” a familiar voice on the other end said.
“Guess who?” Melvin said.
“Woody …”
For most of their 15-minute conversation, Yvonne cried.
“The two things I got out without bawling were ‘Where are you?’ and ‘When do you come home?’ ” Yvonne said during an interview from her home in Klamath Falls.
Melvin wrote to her soon after.
“Even though there were tears in your voice, it was still good to hear you,” he wrote. “And it felt good to know that you know I’m fine and still alive and in one piece.”
Homecoming
Near the war’s end, Yvonne started to grow anxious about Melvin’s homecoming. He felt the same way, especially after avoiding a landmine explosion and nearly being shot by mistake by an allied helicopter.
“I’ll be there on the 3rd or 4th of May, depending on what day we fly,” he wrote. “So getting ready here is going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth every minute, cause it gets me closer to you.”
Yvonne moved weeks before he came home. The apartment was disappointing, especially in terms of size.
“If you think about my room up here, it’s only one-third of it,” she wrote. “I really have problems (getting) all my things into it.”
More than anything, she wanted him there to make her laugh. She lacked entertainment outside their circle of friends. It seemed not very many of them would listen. They were tired from work.
The 249th engineers arrived in Stuttgart in May. Yvonne walked to the air base’s gate, the same spot where she and Melvin had sat in their car six months earlier. She approached the gate guard.
“My fiancé’s supposed to come home today,” she said. “If I could get in.”
Ignoring procedure, he let her pass. She walked through the gate. She saw Melvin, dirty, tired and 43 pounds lighter. She walked into his embrace, ignoring the smells of desert and sweat.
“Next thing I know, I held him,” Yvonne said in an interview. “I kind of have a blackout of that moment.”
He had made it home, just in time for the Kenny Rogers concert.
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