Community Corner

Bel Air Couple's Bond Strengthened by War

Bruce and Brenda Tackett share a love of country and a mutual respect for the role each played in military life.

One local veteran of the Iraq War says although he was shot at every day for months, his wife had a harder job.

Bruce Tackett of Bel Air enlisted with the in 1997. Between then and 2003 he met the love of his life, Brenda.

"I loved my time in. When came, it had a new meaning," Tackett said of his role in the military.

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At that point, Tackett said, he knew it was a matter of time before he would be deployed.

He and his then wife-to-be were engaged when they learned he would be sent to Iraq. They pushed up the wedding date and married just weeks before he was sent to war in 2003.

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"We got married because he was being deployed, so he was one of the first ground troops to cross over into Iraq,” Brenda Tackett said.

Bruce Tackett and his infantry unit entered Iraq in March of 2003.

"It was definitely hairy," Bruce Tackett said. "You know you're going to a foreign country uninvited."

He said the experience made him appreciate the opportunities and things we take for granted in the United States.

"I didn't shower for 32 days," Bruce Tackett said.

A shower, working sewer system, places to swim and opportunities like he had, moving from a rough neighborhood as a child to gaining success as an adult were all things he came to appreciate after his time in Iraq.

"I was literally shot at everyday for seven months," Bruce Tackett said.

While the time in a war zone was difficult, he says his wife had the harder end of the deal.

"Nothing, I think, compares to what she was going through," Bruce Tackett said, later adding, "I've always said the toughest job in the Marine Corps is the Marine Corps wife."

In 2003, Brenda Tackett, a new bride, was on the other side of the world. At the time, there was no telephone or Internet use in Iraq to contact home. The Tacketts wrote letters every day, but those letters sometimes took months to reach halfway around the world.

“We spent the first eight months of our marriage communicating by letter,” Brenda Tackett said.

The first letter she received came about two months after her husband was deployed.

“It was such a great day, finally getting a letter from him," Brenda Tackett said with excitement in her voice.

While Bruce Tackett was away, she prepared their new house, switching careers and missing him desperately.

She decided to leave her position in finance at T. Rowe Price to become a math teacher at . She yearned to share the news with her husband immediately—and in person.

“I had to tell him through letter that I totally changed my career,” Brenda Tackett said.

She agreed with her husband that the hardest thing for her was the unknown.

She was at the lowest weight she has been in her adult life because of the worry.

“I was so stressed, I was worried all the time," she said.

She said she became addicted to Fox News Channel because Rick Leventhal, one of the reporters on the station, was with her husband's unit. She would watch the station hoping to get a glimpse of Bruce.

Even with the challenge, Brenda Tackett says she wouldn't trade her military life.

Like her husband, she appreciates even more than before the little everyday freedoms she has.

“Without veterans we wouldn’t have those freedoms. For us is just a day to celebrate what they’ve done for this country in terms of fighting for our freedoms," Brenda Tackett said.

She has a great pride in her husband and the military. The tradition is one she is open about with her students and her children.

"Seeing how proud Brenda was of me made me proud," Bruce Tackett said.

Bruce Tackett's family has a long tradition of military involvement and his brother and cousin went to Iraq around the same time he did.

His cousin, Patrick Adle, a , went back for a second tour and never returned. To honor his fallen cousin, Bruce and Brenda Tackett named their son after him.

"I think I'd be super proud if my kids joined the Marines, either one of them," Bruce Tackett said.

Brenda Tackett's connection to the military is as strong as her husband's.

“The pride I have for anybody in the military, be it past, present or future," she said, "I just can’t describe what it feels like."


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