When soldiers are dispatched to a war-torn part of the world, people pray for their safe return. But not everyone realizes how big an impact these deployments can have on the families, not just on the men and women in uniform. A pilot in the United States Air Force, Andy Wise, was deployed to Kuwait shortly after Iraq invaded that country in 1990. He had been stationed at Pope Air Force Base for about five and a half years and had expected to move on to a new peacetime assignment. Instead he went to war, leaving behind a wife, Leslie, and a young daughter.
Pope Air Force Base is next to Fort Bragg Army Base, home of the 82nd Airborne and many Special Forces units in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
At the time of the invasion, Andy's wife, Leslie, and their daughter were on vacation with her parents in Massachusetts. He had been away on a mission but was brought back to North Carolina to serve on the crisis action team that would determine the military response. His unit was one of the first to deploy to Kuwait, but neither he nor Leslie expected him to be gone long.
