Married Pilots Could be Leading Troops in Iraq

[sfc_darrel]

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. ? They met during military flight training, were married a year later, and during their 16 years together, rose through the Army ranks while raising a daughter.


Lt. Col. Laura Richardson flies Black Hawk helicopters. Her husband, Lt. Col. Jim Richardson, flies Apaches.

Nothing special, the couple insists.

"It's not new to us," Laura Richardson says.

But the Richardsons may soon make Army history.

If deployed to Iraq, the couple would be the first husband and wife to command battalions in the same brigade task force. Laura Richardson commands the 5th Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division's Aviation Brigade; her husband commands the brigade's 3rd Battalion.

Teamwork has been the key to both their personal relationship and while they fly together on Army missions, the Richardsons say.

They are preparing now, if deployment orders come, to apply the same teamwork in the Persian Gulf.

"He tells what he knows, and I tell him what I know," says Laura Richardson, 39, standing outside a flight simulator at Fort Campbell.

"It works," says Jim Richardson, 42. "We pick up on each other's strengths and weaknesses."

The 101st, based at Fort Campbell on the Tennessee border, is a rapid-deployment division trained to go anywhere in the world in 36 hours. Shots fired from a 101st Apache helicopter started the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The Richardsons -- she is a native of Denver, he of Myrtle Beach, S.C., -- met in a hallway at Fort Rucker, Ala. She was there for flight training. He was taking an advanced flying course. They married about a year later on Nov. 25, 1987.

Their 14-year-old daughter, Lauren, was born while they were stationed in South Korea during the first 41/2 years of their marriage.

During their entire 16 year marriage, the Richardsons have only been separated for two six-month stints. The first was while she was an aide to then-Vice President Al Gore. The second was when he flew Apaches in Afghanistan, returning in August.

"The Army has really done a fabulous job of keeping us together," Jim Richardson says.

If the two deploy, Lauren, a varsity basketball player, will go live with Laura's parents in Denver. Over the years, the two have prepared her for the possibility that both her parents could go to war.

"I think she's a little nervous about it, but she's a pretty independent, flexible-type kid," Laura Richardson says.

Both say they do not worry about the other deploying, partly because they have confidence in the training they have received.

"I'm not really concerned because she has 350 soldiers to take care of her," Jim Richardson says.

While Jim Richardson commanded troops in Afghanistan, Laura led a group at home made up of family members on the homefront.

Laura Richardson says it was during that time she learned the importance of getting information back home as quickly as possible. She said she saw how much each family member worried at any news report about a helicopter crash or other incident.

She also says her leadership as both a wife and officer helped some family members who thought the military might not have been giving them all the information available.

"I think it added some credibility actually that may not have been there before," Laura Richardson says.

She says as a woman in the Army she's never faced discrimination, that the commanders she's had over the years -- all men -- were fair.

The couple says the novelty of their unique Army relationship is lost on them -- and it still surprises them how much attention they have garnered recently because of the possibility of their command positions in Iraq.

After all, they've been at it for years.

"We've done it since we've been in the Army," Laura Richardson says.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77161,00.html

[sfc_darrel]

Oops, forgot something.

[nang]

Will definitely be praying for these brave people, that they battle through and get back safe and sound. Hooah!

[David]

Looks like a great military family, we wish them the best!