War Widow Shares Her Story

War widow shares story of loss in blog post
Sunday, January 22, 2012, 10:04 AM
Patty Gutierrez posted a blog to the GilroyPatch about her story of love and loss.

Her husband, SSG David H. Gutierrez, was killed on Christmas Day 2009, by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Afghanistan.

Patty writes:

We had a wonderful life and a great marriage. We went from Georgia to Tennessee to Hawaii to Washington state. David was in Korea for a year before he was deployed to Iraq with his fellow Wolfhounds, and then to Afghanistan with the 2-1 Infantry out of Ft. Lewis.

The first five months of his deployment were hard because we had to rely on letter and phone calls for communication. But once his unit arrived at their permanent Forward Operating Base (FOB) they got Internet! For almost one month, David and I Skyped everyday, although we downgraded to Yahoo Instant Messenger on the days that I was at work. It was a wonderful blessing to have that option. We talked, laughed, cried and even argued—but we we were able to actually see each other.

David got to see our boys and they were able to share moments with their father. One of his last statements was, “Just a couple more weeks till R&R.”

The last time we talked was Christmas Eve his time and Christmas Eve Eve our time. He watched me wrap presents and heard me yell at the tree in the background as it was starting to tip over. After some laughter, he told me he had to go to a leadership meeting, and then patrol. He said that he’d be right back on the computer to wish us a "Merry Christmas.”

You can read the entire story here.