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Bend Army Major Salutes Fallen Soldiers with Iraq Memorial Quilt

My grandmother tells a story of how she, a new mother and only 20-years-old, hopped a train from Florida to Rhode Island in hopes of seeing her husband at port near Providence, RI. He had written several months prior that he might be there. It was the only communication she had from him in months. She had not seen him since their daughter was born. For a glimpse of him and a chance to touch his tender face, she packed her bags and traveled with her infant more than 1,000 miles in 1943. She missed him by less than four hours.

Back then, a letter, a note was all she had to look forward to. It was all she could count on to know her soldier was still alive. Each night, she'd pray she'd never meet two solemn men in uniform to tell her otherwise.

In 2003, when the US invaded Iraq, Josie Basshan-Howe also watched her husband go off to fight a war. Her daughter was only four-months-old. Josie didn't hear from him again for several weeks.

Experienced military spouses will counsel to keep initial communication to a soldier minimal. "The soldiers have to distance themselves from home so they can get the job done. Some wives wouldn't hear from their husbands at all," said Josie, whose voice softens with a slight southern drawl. It was just too difficult for some soldiers to transition between being the civilian they were and the soldier they had to be.

"At first, he was only supposed to be in Kuwait for six months. Then, there was the march into Iraq. I would go weeks without hearing from him."

Josie had been married for only two years when her husband, Josh, was deployed. He was in Afghanistan and Iraq in Company F-159th Aviation Regiment ("Big Windy"). She was alone on a military base in Giebelstadt, Germany, thousands of miles away from her sisters and her mom – the three that always got her through the toughest times. "You just do what you have to and get through," Josie confessed.

Maj. Craig Wilhelm, an attractive man whose demeanor is more that of a compassionate high school teacher than a military officer, took command of the "Big Windy" unit while Josie's husband had been deployed. Nicknamed "Big Windy" because it was the largest Chinook Helicopter unit in the Army, it consisted of more than 270 soldiers who piloted, manned, and maintained the helicopters. Their mission: transport critical supplies, dignitaries and military personnel to and from the battlefield. As part of his daily routine, Maj. Wilhelm began emailing the families.

"I'd write about the everyday routine without giving away any operational detail," said Wilhelm. The emails were sent once daily at the end of his work day and included details on everything mundane and noteworthy. "The hot water problem is going to be fixed"; "Unfortunately, tonight, we had mashed potatoes that looked like grits and steak that looked like shoe leather"; the weather was bearable because it dropped "down to 112 degrees today"; "We had three aircraft supporting Senator John McCain's visit to Baghdad"; Today was a very tough day for BIG WINDY. One of our aircraft, tail #098, was involved in an accident…all of our crew members were OK- minor scrapes and bruises."

When the soldiers' leave was delayed again, he wrote, "I … am struggling with it for the same reasons you are: my soldiers are being forced to adjust (even miss) important travel and family plans that they (and you) planned." When helping the families reconcile the negative press on the war, he wrote, "We've helped rebuild schools, hospitals, and local governments. … If anything, soldiers are doing a VERY noble thing for humanity's sake. That is the beauty of the American spirit!"

Josie, like every other family member, rushed home every night to read Maj. Wilhelm's emails. The notes connected her to her husband in ways she never thought possible. She'd know about his crappy dinner, who won the base soccer game, and about the narrow escape from harm on the last mission. She'd know why his leave time was delayed, even if her husband couldn't call or write that week.

In his two years as commander, Maj. Wilhelm sent an email every single day - even weekends and holidays - except for four.

Maj. Wilhelm was nearing the end of his two-year command at Big Windy in the spring. Typically, when a commander leaves, the soldiers of the unit give a small gift such as a picture or a handsome leather bag. That seemed too trite for Maj. Wilhelm, the man who embraced the families, making them feel as vital to their soldier's survival as the armor that protected them.

"(We) were important, not just married to someone who went off to play army," Josie recalled.

One wife, Gwen Sanders, suggested they give something more meaningful, something more personal – a handmade quilt. A quilt stitched from the worn uniforms of the soldiers; a quilt in which each family would decorate a section with photos, poems, illustrations, pieces of their favorite hats, or whatever they felt would make sure that Maj Wilhelm would never forget his Big Windy family.

She coordinated getting squares of the soldiers' uniforms cut to size and passed the tattered pieces of material out at an Easter celebration to each family on the base and urged everyone to keep it a secret.

"My fondest memory was making the square that represented my husband. I wanted Craig (Maj. Wilhelm) to look at it and smile and remember the good times," said Shannon Williams, whose husband Neil was deployed with Josie's.

One week after Gwen passed out the squares, four days passed that Maj. Wilhelm did not, could not, email the families.

"I'll never forget it," said Maj. Wilhelm. On his way to another routine meeting at the air base an officer grabbed his arm. "We can't locate Windy 25.'"

Earlier that morning, two Chinook helicopters took off from Kabul headed for the safety of Bagram Air Base. One of them was Windy 25, "Windy Two-Five". Clint Prather, Josie' close friend, was flying it along with his crew and 9 soldiers, one civilian, and one marine. Josie's husband, Josh, was piloting the second helicopter. The two crafts were flying side-by-side when they encountered an unexpected sandstorm. It was one of the worst on record and, according to some reports, it created a 13,000 foot funnel of whirling sand and debris. The pilots lost visibility. They both swerved to avoid it. Josh escaped. The Windy 25 crashed into the hard, desert floor near Ghazni. There were no survivors.

That day, on April 6th, 2005, eighteen lives were lost. Five were soldiers from the Big Windy: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Clint Prather; Staff Sgt. Charles "Chuck" Sanders Jr., Gwen's husband; Spc. Pendleton "Penn" Sykes II, Dave Ayala, and Spc. Michael Spivey.

"It (was) so unreal," Josie said as her voice cracked. "It could have been my husband."

Josie doesn't remember the weeks afterward very clearly. She worked hard, took care of her kids, attended the memorial services, and got by. Gwen left the base and went home to grieve her husband's passing; so did Josie's close friend and neighbor, Irene, wife of Clint Prather.

As the weeks passed, the quilt idea had seemed forgotten. At one point, a friend asked if they should give up. But Josie knew otherwise. "They would have wanted us to finish it," said Josie.

Two months after the accident, Josie gathered a group of friends to begin stitching and planning for the quilt. Josie scribbled a small plan on a sheet of paper. From that basic design and a few sticky notes, they quilted together a few hundred patches of uniform.

For some, the quilt seemed like a project; a chore to finish before Maj. Wilhelm's departure. For Josie and her close friends, it was "a labor of love." Through the next several weeks, the ladies would gather at Josie's house and sew. There was always lots of food, especially Diet Dr. Pepper and chocolate. It went hand-in-hand with the juicy gossip, tears, and laughs the girls shared as they reminisced. As time went on, they exchanged advice on dealing with the sadness and how to handle being happy even when they've lost. Each week, they sewed a little, played a little, lived a little.

"We were like a family in Germany," said Josie.

Josie is now stationed in a military base in Alabama while her husband is still serving in the Army. Maj Wilhelm has since left the Army and is a private civilian with residence in Bend, Oregon. He had taken the quilt to Eastlake Framing in Bend, Oregon, to frame the quilt, preserve it, and to protect it from fading over time. "When I saw it, I was really touched," mentioned Debra Spicer, owner of Eastlake Framing. It was framed with a deep, espresso-colored frame and glazed with a special UV filtering acrylic to protect it. They are investigating local museums and public buildings to put the quilt on display in time for Memorial Day to serve as a tribute to families and soldiers fighting the War on Terror.

"It's humbling to be given this," said Maj. Wilhelm. "Really, this quilt is about what we endure during wartime. It's about military families, not just the soldier."