Today's Officer - Winter 2007 - (Page 18) Similarly, George was attracted to Donna’s unassuming manner and the way she laughed at his jokes. He says he thought Donna was his exact opposite, which worked well for him. After Alaska, Donna decided to go through the Army ROTC program at Columbus State University in Georgia while George was stationed at nearby Fort Benning. The two became engaged in September 1994 and married in April 1996. “You develop certain skill sets in the Army to handle all situations,” George explains. “You just have to step away and develop your own battle rhythm and get into a routine. Otherwise, the wheels come off the train. George also says it helps that theirs is an egalitarian relationship, and he doesn’t view Donna as the sole parent. “Donna is in the military, too, and I respect that. [We] both understand what each other does,” he says. “I am not above changing diapers.” For the most part, the Smawleys have managed to be stationed together, but George points out that being stationed together doesn’t necessarily mean being together. “If you include deployments, assignments, schools, and training, we’ve probably been separated 56 months [since] we’ve been married,” George calculates. In 2006, the Smawleys were stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division. The year began happily with the birth of Emma, but two weeks later, George was deployed to Afghanistan. Five months later, so was Donna, leaving Emma stateside without her parents. Luckily, the Smawleys have a supportive family, and Emma stayed with her grandparents in Pennsylvania for three months. Although leaving was tough, Donna says she fully expected to be deployed eventually. “That’s the way it is when you are assigned to one of the most deployed divisions in the Army,” she says. “You know you are going at some point.” George returned to Fort Drum in September 2006 and brought Emma back to New York with him. He was a single father until Donna returned in January 2007. Although it was a lot of work, he says, he felt completely prepared to take care of Emma and his job. 18 TODAY’S OFFICER Winter 2007/08 The Smawleys have since relocated to the Washington, D.C., area and are together with Emma for the foreseeable future. They are both within four years of retirement eligibility and plan to stay in the military at least until that point. “After that, it depends on family and whether or not there is a place for us to match the service satisfaction and challenge of the past 16 or so years,” says Donna. George and Donna think the military certainly tries to accommodate the needs of couples like themselves. Though it’s not always perfect, says George, it’s getting better as leadership evolves through the ranks. “It’s purely generational,” he says. “There’s been a marked improvement in the past seven or so years. Besides, you have to remember that this is a volunteer service. We decided to do this and believe in what we do.” FRED AND JOANNE Col. Fred Peck, USMC-Ret., and his wife, Lt. Joanne Schilling, USMC-Ret., say theirs is a marriage made in heaven — Marine Corps heaven, that is! In the early 1980s, Fred was a major who had just completed Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va. Joanne was a captain who was finishing the Marine Corps
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