Deployed couple take nothing for granted

The days in Iraq have long become an exercise in patience and repetition for Sgt. 1st Class Kenric Brooks and Staff Sgt. Eleanor Brooks, a husband and wife who deployed together from Fort Sill in July.

They left behind their two boys — Joshua, 8, and Kenric Jr., 5 — in the care of their great-grandmother in Monticello, Ga.

Since then, Kenric and Eleanor have been left mostly alone with their thoughts.

"You can only imagine the things I think about, everything from what to eat or what not to eat to where am I going to retire to what the boys are doing in school,” Kenric told The Oklahoman via an e-mail from his post on the Iraq-Iran border. "I don't take anything for granted here. I just enjoy each moment as if it were my last.”

Kenric and his wife departed Fort Sill with the promise of remaining together at a post in Baghdad. Those plans changed shortly after their arrival in Iraq when Kenric, a mechanic, was sent with a small U.S. contingent to the Iraq-Iran border to assist coalition forces with the acquisition, repair, and maintenance of equipment.

Eleanor remained behind in Baghdad where she tracks the readiness of various companies and provides soldiers with information about re-enlistment options. Both do their jobs daily to the sound of incoming mortars.

Neither complains.

"I see soldiers who are war-torn and weary of deployment, but who are determined to watch their battle buddy's back,” Eleanor said via an e-mail.

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