We Miss You Pete! xoxoxo

This article was written about our dear friends, Pete, Tammi and Miss Brenna. You can visit the link to see the video.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/THE_HOMEFRONT_12-30-10_OCLL39F_v14.426c05.html


War hits home for family of newly deployed captain from R.I. National Guard / Video
08:32 AM EST on Thursday, December 30, 2010
By Tom MooneyJournal Staff Writer
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SMITHFIELD –– On a snowy evening, the Christmas lights shine outside Tammi Lawrence’s home. A tree stands in the family room. A tray of goodies, from Tammi’s cookie swap at work, awaits someone’s attention at the kitchen counter. But look closer.
Something’s awry.
That’s Tammi dragging out the trash barrel and recycling bin to the curb. She hates that chore the most. And that’s her father-in-law pulling into the driveway every morning. He takes 4-year-old Brenna to preschool and has promised to clear the walk this winter with the snowblower he’s dropped off. During the big post-Christmas snowfall a family friend interceded and “plowed and shoveled me out,” she said.
Look at those outside lights again. That’s half what Peter Lawrence usually hangs for Christmas. Haven’t seen him around. And the Christmas tree? Brenna complains it’s short this year and fake. She wants a big, real fir.
Extra
R.I. National Guard fights battles abroad and at home
“When Daddy gets home,” Tammi has had to tell her daughter.
Until then, she explains, “we’re trying to do everything simple.” You have to when “you’re the only one.”
A new year dawns and with it Tammi Lawrence is learning to deal with new, painful emotions.
Two protracted wars drag into a new decade with scant notice from many Americans. She’s no longer one of them.
In September, her husband, Peter Lawrence, 35, a captain with the National Guard’s 103rd Field Artillery Battalion, deployed for the first time, something he’d been wanting and something Tammi hoped would never happen.

Tammi Lawrence is managing Christmas alone in Smithfield this year with daughter, Brenna, age 4, while her husband, Peter, is deployed in Kuwait with the Rhode Island Army National Guard’s 103rd Field Artillery Battalion. The Providence Journal / John Freidah
Like that, war reached their threshold.
“This war has been going on for years and to me, people are numb to it,” she says. “Unless you’re in it, I mean.”
“We’re no different from other [deployed] families,” she says. “But it’s new to me so I feel like I’m the only person.”
She feels worse for Peter. “I have my daughter, I have my family. He just went through a sad period of not seeing his daughter. He really misses her.” And there’s little solace in finding distractions beyond his Kuwaiti headquarters: “There’s no trees, no water. All there is is desert as far as you can see.”
Some 50,000 troops remain in Iraq. Many are supported through supply lines stretching back into Kuwait. Captain Lawrence, whose grandfather flew P-47 fighters over Europe in World War II, whose father served in the Army during Vietnam, directs security missions for those truck convoys. He loves his job. He’s served in the Guard since he was a teenager.
Two years ago he took a risk and opened his own small Nationwide insurance agency in North Providence. While he set off to build a business, Tammi went about being a school nurse at Wilbur Elementary in Somerset, Mass.
“We worked and then we did our home stuff together,” says Tammi, “and we didn’t pay attention to that” — the war.
Then word came. The Lawrences had nine months to plan before their lives turned upside down.
Peter trained a good friend to run his new business. His dedicated secretary still refuses to take a day off. Nationwide called the office the other day asking what it could do to help Tammi at home. The company made arrangements to help with the oil bill.
Tammi and Peter e-mail daily. They use Skype often, seeing and talking to each other through computers. On weekends, Tammi sets up the computer at Peter’s parents so they can see their son, too.
Technology keeps them all connected but reminds them, too, of the distance between them; eight more months on Peter’s deployment.
Members of a family support group told Tammi that “you will notice that people just don’t think it’s a big deal that your husband is away.” That has come true on occasion, she says.
“It’s really bizarre. They’ll say, ‘How’re you doing’ and that’s it. But everyone is busy with their own lives. So I don’t think they know what to do. I don’t even know what I want them to do –– besides take out my trash,” she says, laughing.
Peter took care of the outdoor chores, the car-oil changes, the shoveling. She handled things inside. Now she tries to do both.
Not long ago little Brenna watched her friend being picked up by her father. “Please pick me,” she asked. “Pick me up, too.”
Nights are the hardest for them both. Too much time to think about him gone.
Now rather than brace for Brenna’s crying, Tammi has devised a new routine: they make popcorn together and then play the Candy Land board game over and over until they’re both sleepy.
No war news enters Tammi’s house, no pictures of soldiers in uniform. “We do a lot of Christmas specials here.”
The family set an empty seat for Peter at Thanksgiving. His dress uniform coat hung from the back of a chair. Three framed photographs sat among the silverware and plates: Peter in fatigues, with his rifle slung over his shoulder; Peter holding Brenna when she was 2; a family portrait of the three of them on vacation.
Peter called precisely at 2 p.m. local time as the family was preparing to sit down. Everyone got a chance to talk to him.
“It was tough for everybody,” says Tammi, “but we got through it.”
Peter’s parents arrived at the house at 6 a.m. Christmas morning. T-Mobile loaned Tammi a laptop so Peter could Skype and watch his daughter open presents under that small, artificial tree.
“We’ll do it up big next year,” Tammi says.
Meantime, Peter is scheduled to come home on leave in April.
Brenna is already asking how many days away is that. …Tomorrow? Her parents are gently reminding her it’s only for a few days. Then Daddy’s going back to work.
And Tammi will still be taking out that trash barrel.
tmooney@projo.com