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Waiting for him

Nov-14-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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By Chris Barron | Sun Staff

It's been 34 days since Shawna Burbank opened her door to two Army soldiers dressed in their finest.

But days are too large a measure to describe her life since she was informed of her husband's death in Iraq on that Monday morning.

Her life is now defined hourly — an hour of heartache, an hour of numbness, an hour of denial and even an hour of feeling OK.

As of 8 a.m. today, it's been 816 hours since she learned that her husband of nine years, Army Staff Sgt. Michael Burbank, was killed Oct. 10 by a truck bomb. He was standing in the open hatch of his Fort Lewis-based Stryker vehicle when it went off. [...]

Like many military widows, Shawna is living on base and in housing provided by the Army. The majority of her friends are Army wives, and it's a lifestyle she's grown accustomed to and comfortable with over the past eight years.

But she knows she will soon have to move out of the house where she and her husband resided. Military policy says surviving spouses must vacate base housing no later than six months from the date of a soldier's death.

Not only did Shawna lose her husband, but she's also about to lose her way of life.

"It's scary to think about moving on from that," she said. "Civilian life is ahead. It'll be lonely, but I'll have my church friends and I have plenty of family. I'll meet other friends.

"But I'm taking my time to think about it. I still feel like I'm in limbo."

The most heartbreaking aspect of Shawna's story is that her husband was just two weeks from returning home when he was killed. She was preparing his homecoming party.

The family buried Michael at Tahoma National Cemetery on Oct. 21. His unit returned from a year in Iraq two days later. The pain of seeing Michael's friends and comrades was nearly unbearable for Shawna.

"The first time I saw one of the guys Michael was over there with, it was very hard," Shawna said. "It made it real that he wasn't here."

But soon, those men who served with her husband became a great comfort. They shared stories and filled in the blanks of Michael's last few months that found him too busy to e-mail or call home much because he transferred to the front lines. [...]


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