It was a shock. He, you know, was looking forward to it. Justin allowed me, and honored me, with getting Stephanie’s engagement ring. And he took his leave in January of 2004 and I had sent the ring to him. And, so, he had given it to Stephanie, they got engaged, and while on leave there with her, he was I believe 22 days or something close to that they had been making plans for the wedding and whatnot, and so it came—he called here and I had been out of town and got back and found out that he had, you know, they had said, “You’re not leaving just yet.”
And, so, I took it upon myself to send out letters, because I had already sent out wedding invitations from here to people—to a list he had given me—and so I sent everyone notices that you know it was to be postponed—it wasn’t to be canceled, it was to be postponed—and that we would notify them, and, you know, Justin, it was out of his hands.
We were all very disappointed, I mean, I had my tickets for Germany—his brother had his passport—we were very excited to be able to see him, because I hadn’t seen Justin since after his graduation from Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
And, he had come up here for a little bit, and we were in Michigan for my husband’s nephew’s graduation, and that was the last time I had seen Justin prior to his deployment to Baumholder in Germany. So, you know, we were all looking forward to seeing him, we had made plans, and then everything kind of blew up, and there’s no way you can tell the Army “No, I’m not going” or that “I’m not going to stay,” so yeah. He was disappointed.
He asked me if I would please send flowers to apologize, and it was a blow to all of us of course, and of course my fears—you know, that he had made it through the time that he had been there and I just, I wanted him out of there, as does any mother with their child. And after he had called—which was around the middle of April—it was a few weeks later that he had been killed.