Together in Iraq, but still far apart

MOSUL, Iraq — Spc. Jessica Hall, 21, and Cpl. Bobby Hall, 25, of Castlewood, Va., have been married for almost two years, but their marriage has been anything but traditional since they were deployed to northern Iraq with Virginia’s 276th Engineer Battalion.

He’s with Bravo Company, filling his days with missions around Mosul. He builds roads, provides security and detonates improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

She’s a cook with the Headquarters Company. Private contractors run the cafeteria here, so she usually works at the gate as a guard or as a gunner on convoys through Mosul.

“She’s got duty she needs to do. I have duty I need to do. Finding time together is almost impossible. And when we do, they put all these restrictions on us,” Cpl. Hall says.

The two try to eat breakfast together every day. They run together in the evenings in Army-issued shorts and T-shirts. He writes love letters. She does his laundry and buys him issues of Playboy.

“If I can’t be with him,” Spc. Hall says, “it’s the least I can do.”

Like many modern couples on the go, they rely on technology to stay in touch.

“These,” she says, holding up blue Cobra two-way radios, “are a vital part of keeping our marriage.” She’s Cleo-11 and he’s Alex-13 — references to Cleopatra and Alexander the Great.

Time permitting, they converse each evening in hushed tones outside her home — a converted cargo container called a conex. Cpl. Hall takes a seat just outside the door while she sits on the stoop; if no one is watching, they can kiss goodnight.

Their superiors have laid out basic rules, but Spc. Hall says, “They expect us to know we can’t be in rooms, period. We can’t be touchy-feely during duty hours, but afterward, you can’t be seen together.”

Capt. Chris Doss, who handles personnel matters for the 276th Engineer Battalion, says, “The policy that the brigade commander instituted is, of course, no cohabitation. Males cannot visit females in their conexes, and females cannot visit males in their conexes. There’s no lingering around in somebody’s sleeping area.

“Otherwise, I think we’d have concerns about any type of behavior that would affect the good standards of the command.”

Cpl. Hall proposed to Spc. Hall in February 2001. In May, Spc. Hall suggested that they join the National Guard after an encounter with a friend in the Guard who had talked up the benefits.

They married in June and were sworn into the Virginia National Guard in July.

“We raised our hands for this country,” Cpl. Hall says. “We decided if we were going to do it, we were going to do it together.

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