A world and a war apart, Chuck and Machelle Ferguson keep their marriage strong

Nothing, it seems, can break the bond between Chuck and Machelle Ferguson.

War, distance, months spent apart — it has no bearing on this Moses Lake couple's love for each other.

Sgt. Charles "Chuck" Ferguson of Moses Lake, a machine gunner with Charlie Company, 1-161st Infantry, first left home in October 2003 for Fort Lewis where he would begin training for a deployment to Iraq with the rest of his National Guard unit. He trained there until February of 2004 when he left for Fort Irwin, Calif.

Machelle saw her husband on March 11, 2004 when she flew down to California to see him before he left for Iraq where he is still serving. The last time she saw him was in September, when he was home on leave for two weeks.

"It's tough sometimes," said Machelle, who keeps a brave face here at home for her and Chuck's three children: Alyssa, 9, Caitlin, 8, and Sean, 4.

But as the wife of a man who has served either as active duty or with the National Guard almost constantly since she met him in 1992, Machelle was not entirely unprepared to face her husband's long deployment.

In fact, she helped other families ready for the extended absence of the servicemen who make up Charlie Company, which drills in Moses Lake and whose approximately 160 members hail primarily from Warden, Moses Lake, Tri-Cities and Spokane.

As the Family Readiness Coordinator for Moses Lake, Machelle works with the families and loved ones of 65 servicemen from the local area.

At the start of Charlie Company's deployment, Machelle said she told the other wives: "This deployment will either make your marriage stronger or it will tear you apart."

In her and Chuck's case, it's clearly the former.

Machelle and Chuck met on a blind date in Nashville, Tenn. when he was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky. He had just returned from being stationed in Panama and one of his friends and one of Machelle's friends were dating. The other couple decided to introduce Chuck and Machelle over dinner at Applebee's.

"I told my friend, I said, 'I'm gonna marry that guy,'" Machelle said with a laugh, her eyes shining.

"My first thought of Machelle was 'Wow, she's attractive,'" Chuck wrote from Iraq last week. "And she had this way of looking you right in the eyes as she talked. I thought to myself, she has a strong spirit."

"I just always knew, there was something about him," Machelle said. "He's caring — he has his hard side to him because that's what the military puts in him, but he's tender too."

A year and a half later, Chuck and Machelle, as well as the couple who introduced them, were married within a month of each other, in 1993.

From the very start, Machelle got used to having Chuck leave.

"They were always gone," Machelle said of the numerous times he would be gone for days at a time. Now, several days apart sounds insignificant in comparison to Chuck's current deployment.

"He's done a longer deployment as a National Guardsman than he ever did as active duty," Machelle said.

Chuck joined the Army in May of 1989, two years after graduating from Moses Lake High School. He was active duty until 1993, then he was in the National Guard until 1995 when he signed up for active duty again. He left the Army in 1998, and he and his wife and children moved to Moses Lake where his parents, Roger and Jackie Hastings, still live. Chuck began working for Inflation Systems, Inc. where he is still employed.

His military career began long before that first enlistment, however, when he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol as a high school student.

"He loves the military," Machelle said. "He's not happy when he's not doing something military."

And so, after five years of civilian life, Chuck joined the Washington National Guard in January 2003.

"We already knew what was probably coming," Machelle said. Within 10 months, Chuck left for training before heading to Iraq.

It is his third deployment, but is by far the longest and most dangerous.

"We have been through this kind of separation before, so it's nothing new," Chuck wrote. "The danger is much higher, but our love for each other is strong."

It's so strong, in fact, that both feel there is a connection between them that keeps them in tune with each other even while they're thousands of miles apart.

Machelle can recall several times when Chuck has phoned her right when she misses him most. "There's just a bond there — I don't know how to describe it," she said.

"I think we just have a link," Chuck wrote. "I can always tell if she's having a hard time and me, her. We support each other emotionally and we always talk everything through."

But talk isn't cheap between Iraq and the U.S.

Phone calls range from 80 cents to $2.49 a minute, so mostly the Fergusons spend time on Instant Messenger. They have gone more than a month without talking.

"Sometimes you just need to hear the voice," Machelle said.

Without her husband around, Machelle said she draws strength from the other servicemen's families. "We've just become instant friends," she said. "You draw off of each other. There's that bond there that I don't think anybody can understand. We're all going through the same thing."

While she maintains contact with other close friends, Machelle said they can never really know what she's going through.

"They still don't know what that feeling is like — your husband is being shot at."

She asks that those without family members or friends serving in the war be understanding about people like her are going through.

"That's not a normal thing for somebody to worry 24 hours a day — the reality is we never know what's going on over there. I really can't describe it. I think about it everyday, will I have to go on without him? I just can't imagine being without him," she said.

Being a single mom suddenly is not easy either.

"You don't realize how much you work together with your spouse until you have to do it on your own," Machelle said. She also works as substitute educational assistant for the Moses Lake School District, and keeps busy running the kids from various after-school activities and keeping life as normal as possible for them.

"They have their job to do there and we have our job to do here," she said.

But Chuck's job there is nearly over, and the family's hero countdown calendar is almost full of the stickers the kids place on it daily to mark off the time he has been gone.

"I've got butterflies," said Machelle, who is hoping for her husband's return by the end of March.

"I'm very excited about coming home," Chuck wrote. "I look forward to holding my wife again. I miss her very much and my love for her is even stronger. I can't wait to see our children, kiss them and give them all a big hug. I'm very proud of them all and they have held together very well."