By Terese Schlachter
Producer, The Pentagon Channel
“I’m getting out,” she told me.
“Oh! Where ya goin’?” I asked.
“Special effects make up school,” she answered.
How Hollywood, I thought, though she was slightly glamorous- the long swirly blonde air and bright blue eyes.
“Well, what did you do in?” I asked.
“Avionics mechanic.”
Oh, well obviously.
“So what brings you here?”
Turns out it was a long road.
Sergeant Amanda Loveless is an alumnus of the Defense Health Clinical Center’s so called “Phase II” program, which teaches coping skills to service members who are diagnosed with PTSD. When I met her she was attending a graduation ceremony for the most recent class.
When she joined the Army on her 18th birthday, she already knew how to work on cars. So when someone suggested she take her wrench to some chopper engines, it all came pretty naturally. She was in Germany in 2003 when the war started. And she remembers being friendly with a cook there, who she knew only as Sergeant Harris.
Her unit – 2nd of 501st Aviation- was sent to Iraq to provide transport services to and from Baghdad International Airport.
“It was hell. There was no electricity. Only the water we had with us. We ate MRE’s. We slept in the hangar, dirt floors and pigeons overhead. We lived in there for 8 months. It was like a going on a camping trip for a really long time except every once in a while you’d have to run for you r life. We got mortared every night. They hit the side twice and blew out the glass once.”
When tents arrived they became targets for enemy RPG’s. Two were wounded.
There were about 120 people in her company. She was one of three women. And she earned a reputation for being a solid mechanic.
Then one day, an oddly amusing, rather anonymous e-mail: Hey! I’m your future brother-in-law! Meet me at the MWR tent!
She went there. One of nine children, it was hard to keep track of what they all were doing. She had no idea Sergeant Blake Harris had been dating her little sister, Brandy. They’d met at Fort Benning.
Amanda and Blake became fast friends.
“He protected me. I protected him. We were strong together.”
Back in the states a year later her sister and Blake were married. They all spent time together in Germany.
“I had a family finally. The three of us got some family time. We had a blast! It was so awesome.”
Blake and Amanda deployed again to Iraq. They returned safely about five months later.
But Blake was tired of his kitchen duties. He wanted to do more – see more. He became a forward observer, and went to Texas, where he deployed again, this time without Amanda.
On March 15 – her mother’s 50th birthday, Blake was killed in a secondary IED hit, as he escaped a tank struck by an RPG.
Amanda saw the body and understood why he didn’t survive. Shrapnel had pierced his temple. His face was distorted and bloated. She escorted Blake from Dover to Arlington National Cemetery. She did the honorable thing, in uniform, quietly keeping her grief in check. She warned those who wanted to look inside the casket: it doesn’t look like Blake. When her young nephew thought he heard his dad knocking from inside, she had the casket opened. Her nephew finally believed, saying, “Okay, I understand. Daddy’s protecting God.” She traveled to Texas to be with her sister. Then she went to Fort Riley, to help set up a new Army facility.
But things weren’t right. She was dizzy. Her vision was blurred. Her heart raced. People told her she was grieving. And that she needed counseling.
She began seeing doctors. They said she was stressed. But she knew there was more. She got orders to go back to Iraq. But she was told she couldn’t go.
“I felt like I was being put in the trash. I had flown, I crewed, I was even an inspector. I was just being kicked to the curb.”
“They said I was bi-polar and had to leave the military. I was having migraines. So I said well at least fix the migraines.”
One day she wound up in the office of an ear, nose and throat doctor. He walked into the examination room with her records in his hand and said, innocently enough, “What about the tumor?”
That’s how she found out she had a small Pituitary Microadenoma her brain. Well, that would explain a few things. She went to Johns Hopkins, where they treated the symptoms like the dizziness and nausea. The benign tumor was too small to remove.
“I thought I was going to die. I fought so hard to get back to normal. I thought I was gonna meet my guys in the field. But the military told me I was done. And I started to believe it.”
Normally at about five and a half feet tall, she weighed 130 pounds. Her weight shot up close to 200. She would dream of Blake, seeing him being blown up in that hangar in Iraq. Thunderstorms sent her reeling.
And there was the matter of Sandy Lou Loveless, her dog, a gift from Blake before he left for Texas. He gave her the dog so she wouldn’t be lonely. Even Sandy Lou kept getting sick.
“I wasn’t suicidal, but I thought if I die, that’s okay,” she said. She was sent to Fort Meade for counseling. And some folks at Fort Meade sent her to the DHCC.
“Those guys just stepped in and they saved my life,” she said. She looked around the room. We’d been talking for a while. “I come here pretty often. I still do the acupuncture. And the yoga. It lets your mind release itself.”
Dr. Roy Clymer, who runs the program, stood nearby.
“One of the first things we did- we went to Blake’s grave at Arlington. Dr. Clymer put his hand on my shoulder and told me that I’m an amazing person. I’d been through so much. And here I was. That was the turning point.”
She began smiling again. She met with the nutritionist. The weight began coming off. She found her voice. And her will. Even Sandy Lou found the skip in her step.
And she remembered her childhood love: horror movies. But not for the thrill.
“I just always wondered how they made it look so real!”
So she is going to find out. On the G.I. Bill at Tom Seviny’s Special Effects Make Up School, in Pennsylvania where she starts in the fall. But is she going Hollywood? Nope. She wants to use her plastics, glue and magic to help put wounded soldiers back together again.
“With the new technology you can do so much with faces, arms, everything. I just want to help them feel normal again.”
Amanda Loveless has been from normal and back. I can’t wait to see what she creates.
