As the only female flight mechanic in her U.S. Army reserve unit, Lisa Caldwell got used to being a dating target.
“Almost every weekend there was a different guy who was asking me out to dinner or something — which was entertaining,” Caldwell says.
But she didn’t want a workplace relationship, until fellow reservist Justin Poage began showing her the finer points of helicopter maintenance.
“It was like, ‘Oh, this is a bright guy,’ ” Caldwell remembers. “He knew exactly what he was doing. He was very confident. We just got along well.”
The single life is unpredictable. But for single veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s also another step in their journey back to normalcy.
Caldwell, a 30-year-old sergeant, and Poage, a 25-year-old specialist, took a chance and began seeing each other in February. It went well. They now live together in Olathe.
In their civilian jobs Poage is an auto mechanic and Caldwell (a former military flight medic) teaches doctors how to use computers during surgery.
“I have no idea why she went for me,” Poage says.
“He says that I’m one of the kindest people he’s ever met,” she says.
That each has endured life-endangering deployments continues to be a bond.
“The cold, hard reality of it is that we’ve both been over there,” Poage says. “I was in Iraq. She was in Afghanistan. We made friends over there. We lost friends over there. And it helps to be able to talk to someone who’s close to you who’s able to understand.”
Caldwell agrees. “It’s difficult if not impossible to truly grasp the experience for somebody who hasn’t been over there,” she says. “It would be like a mother trying to explain what childbirth was like to somebody who’s never had a baby.”
“A few weeks ago,” Poage says, “I was having a rough time because it was the one-year anniversary of a friend of mine dying in Baghdad. She helped me through that. One night we just kind of sat down and had a heart to heart. It means a lot.”
Any thoughts of marriage?
“We’ve talked about it here and there,” Poage says. “Every time I think about it, I get nervous.”
“You don’t join the military to find a husband,” Caldwell says. “The military is the military, not a dating service. But we’re all human.”
•••
One month after being deployed to Afghanistan, U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Moore learned that his sweetheart had dumped him for a mutual friend back home in Baldwin City, Kan.
His Army buddies told him to get over it. He got the message.
To make the pain go away, Moore, 23, considered having a fling with a woman — any woman — upon his return home to reserve duty in March 2007.
“It definitely crossed my mind,” he says. “But, unfortunately, I’ve never been that kind of guy. Or fortunately. My character and morality get the best of me.”
While the proving ground of Moore’s Army experience has made him more ambitious professionally, it didn’t turn him into a heat-seeking ladies man.
“Approaching women is still a problem, especially in places like bars and nightclubs,” he says. “You have to advertise. And I just don’t know exactly how to get ahead of these very flashy, loud, obnoxious guys. It’s very competitive and primal out there.”
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