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Saturday, February 24, 2007
Trip home starts in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kenneth Hutnick knows the only route back home to Alpharetta is the one that takes him away.
He steps aboard the MARTA rail car at North Springs station, and the train hurtles south. Away from his wife, Suzanne. Away from his three daughters, Katie, Erin and Ashlyn, just 27 days old. He held the baby in his arms at the breakfast table until it was time to go.
Earlier this month, MARTA had delivered Hutnick to his cherished family. Then, he was a soldier returning from the battleground of Iraq to warm embraces and the joy of a newborn.
“It’s the kind of stuff movies are made of, almost,” he says, reflecting on his homecoming.
But time whizzed by faster than any train.
Now Hutnick is going back to war, exchanging the softness of three little girls for a company of 160 men, roughened on the edges from time in the infantry. It’s his second time in Iraq with the Georgia Army National Guard.
The train takes him farther and farther from the loved ones he won’t see again until August or perhaps September. In his head, the 42-year-old company commander already has started the six months remaining in battle.
“It begins with the journey back,” he says. “You can’t come home until you’ve left.”
Call it soldier discipline. Hutnick is adept at compartmentalizing his emotions. “Part of it is that if you linger on it, it hurts,” he says about leaving home. “So I try not to linger on it. Maybe it’s unhealthy.”
He laughs at his psychological evaluation of himself.
On this late February day, dancing daffodils and budding trees offer glimpses of the spring that lies ahead. In Tal Afar, a northern Iraqi town not far from the Syrian border, where Company H, 121st Infantry is based, Hutnick will see a different spring. The rain will dissipate and the searing heat of the desert will roll in. No dogwoods or azaleas will color Hutnick’s vista.
The MARTA stops pass by quickly. It’s almost 11 a.m.
At the Lindbergh Station, a soldier dressed in full combat uniform steps aboard the train.
The officer in Hutnick can’t help himself. He inspects the young enlisted man. He shouldn’t have his shades on inside, Hutnick notes. And he’s not wearing his rank on his patrol cap.
Hutnick has been away from his own soldiers almost a month. He is eager to get back to them. He is anxious: His company might be relocated elsewhere in Iraq.
Life has been good at Sykes, the forward operating base in Tal Afar. Hutnick has not lost any soldiers in combat. What will the next six months hold?
He reads the names of the passing MARTA stations.
Midtown.
North Avenue.
The stops are familiar from his days as a young financial analyst who commuted downtown. As the train pauses at Peachtree Center, he remembers a youthful escapade.
A track star in high school and always one for physical fitness, Hutnick once ran all the way up the steep down escalator at Peachtree Center. He doubts he is fit enough to do that now.
Like a lot of soldiers, Hutnick is a history buff. He especially likes to read books about war. One of his inspirations is Maj. Dick Winters, the leader of Easy Company immortalized in the World War II book “Band of Brothers,” and later in a television miniseries.
Hutnick aspires to be “that kind of leader.” He joined the Army straight out of high school and, after a hiatus, settled on a career in the National Guard.
The train snakes its way through south Atlanta. Hutnick stares at the signs and billboards that flash by in a blur.
West End.
Oakland City.
He says “Fort McPherson” out loud and wonders what will become of the base when it is shuttered in the near future.
Three more stops.
As the train arrives at the airport, Hutnick gathers his olive green duffle bag and backpack. He steps onto the platform in front of little girls carrying winter parkas and rolling pink bags on wheels. The last time he went on vacation with his girls was last summer, to Disney World. He promised Katie he would take her there again when he returns from Iraq.
For the 5-year-old and the rest of his family, that day is the focus — the day a father, husband and son comes home. It is the subtext of all farewells.
Hutnick’s father, who did two tours with the Air Force in Vietnam, had driven his son to the North Springs MARTA station. They exchanged military banter during the short drive down Ga. 400, then hugged goodbye.
“I love you, Dad.”
As Hutnick turned to walk toward the turnstiles, his father called out: “If you’re going to be like Dick Winters, remember: He came back.”
As morning turns to afternoon, the Army captain makes his way through airport security, to the international terminal.
His journey away from home is just hours old. But it is the beginning of coming back.
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For Daddy’s girl, questions about time — and trust
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Katie Hutnick understands the passage of time the way most children do: how-long-until.
How long until we eat?
How long until we get there?
How long until I go to kindergarten?
This morning the question is: How long until Daddy gets back from Iraq for good? The short answer is six months.
Even at 5 years old, Katie senses that is not the only answer. There’s another possibility, one that no one in her Alpharetta home wants to think about for long.
For two weeks and three days, Katie has had a taste of what it will be like if the short answer proves true. Her father has been home on leave from duty as commander of Company H, 121st Infantry of the Georgia Army National Guard.
Over there he is Capt. Kenneth Hutnick. Here, he is Daddy.
She has spelled out that name for him with stickers of red and yellow on the back of a kitchen chair. Though he timed his return home to see Katie’s newborn sister Ashlyn, for Katie his visit has been a nonstop party. One day Chuck E. Cheese, the next Monkey Joe’s, the next weaving and bobbing through the wooded backyard, pretending to be dinosaurs and ghosts. He even sat through a Barbie movie.
Now, in the final moments before he leaves to return to Iraq, Katie does not want him out of her sight.
He sits at the breakfast table holding Ashlyn, swaddled in pink fleece. “Daddy, I don’t want you to go,” Katie says.
“I know, but it’s only for six more months, and then it’ll be your birthday. And where are we going?”
“Disney World!”
She plants a kiss on his cheek and wedges herself onto his lap. Her legs, in rainbow-striped tights, dangle over the knee of his camouflage uniform.
***
This is Hutnick’s second deployment to Iraq. The first time, at the start of the war, Katie was too young to grasp what was going on.
Now she’s like a sponge. So Hutnick doesn’t talk about what he does in front of the kids. He and his wife, Suzanne, couch it in terms of going to work rather than going to war.
Most people come home from work every day safely.
The kitchen still smells of toasted English muffins and coffee when Katie makes her announcement.
“OK, everybody, it’s time to say goodbye to Daddy.”
Katie’s grandfather steps outside to warm up the car. He has driven up from Byron to take his son to the MARTA station. Katie will stay behind with her mother, sisters and their part-time nanny. The hugs and kisses begin, but Katie’s goodbye will not be simple.
“Can you throw me in the air one last time before you leave, Daddy? As high as you possibly can, Daddy, as high as you can.”
The hem of her petal-pink dress flutters in the air as he throws her higher and higher, seemingly as high as the bare treetops outside the family room windows. On each ascent, Katie squeezes her eyes shut.
The look on her face says she’s certain that her father’s hands will not let her fall.
***
By the time Ken Hutnick boards the train to the airport, Katie has performed a puppet show in the downstairs playroom, taken a bow and found a clear spot on the toy-strewn floor. She props her diary in her lap.
“Mommy, where’s Daddy?”
“Daddy went back to work.”
“OK.”
Katie pops the cap off a yellow marker and writes in wiggly lines that seem to her the way grown-ups do. She reads aloud:
“Today Daddy went back to Iraq. I’m very happy he did not get killed in the war and that he had a safe journey back here to see us. We had a good time. I love Daddy. He’s the bravest ever. P.S. I hope he comes back safely.”
Her mother smiles, but Suzanne’s eyes are full of surprise, if not alarm. Where has her child heard that? “Yes, that’s a good thing to hope for. Let’s pray for it every night,” Suzanne tells her.
Katie puts the diary down and jumps up to play with her 2-year-old sister, Erin.
Suzanne remains on the floor, her eyes fixed on the pages of yellow squiggles.
***
Later, Suzanne is nursing Ashlyn in the family room. Katie arrives with a sheet of Hello Kitty stickers which she proceeds to put on Erin and her mother. She also has more questions.
She pries herself a spot between the soft arm of the couch and the warmth of her mother. The pink watch on Katie’s wrist measures minutes and hours, not months.
“Mommy, how long is six months?”
“Well, six months is a long time. It’ll be summer, and we’ll almost be ready for school. But Daddy will be able to take you to the bus stop.”
“Yeah, I won’t be in pre-k then.”
“That’s right, you’ll be in kindergarten.”
“I wish it was one week. I wish it was one day.”
“Me, too. You know Daddy’s gonna be all right and OK, and he’s gonna come back?”
“I don’t know he’s gonna be OK.”
“Yes, he will. He’ll be OK, and he’ll come back.”
Katie stares at a Baby Einstein video on television.
A juvenile version of a Mozart concerto fills the room.
***
By midafternoon Katie isn’t feeling well. She has a fever, and she’s throwing up. Stomach virus, her mother figures. Suzanne builds a fire in the fireplace to help soothe her, while Katie lies on the couch. A “Curious George” video keeps her entertained.
Erin and Ashlyn are down for naps. In the relative quiet of this February day, their mother goes through the family budget to see how much longer she can keep the nanny. Another mom at Katie’s preschool helped raise money to hire the extra hands.
Three kids under the age of 6 are quite a lot to handle, particularly when the family disciplinarian is overseas.
Soon the phone rings.
It’s Ken. He’s at the Atlanta airport waiting for his flight to a destination he cannot share.
Suzanne tells him about Katie’s illness. She passes her the phone. In the best I’m-really-really-sick voice she can muster, she tells her father about her tummy ache, blow by blow. She also tells him she loves him.
“OK, I’ll call you back when I’m feeling better, Daddy.”
She trusts that even in Iraq, he will answer if she calls.
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