A Lewiston parent prepares for a soldier’s life in the Middle East.
By Daniel Hartill
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Value each moment at home. Talk to your kids.

“If you have five extra minutes with your family, make it count,” Sgt. First Class Normand Roy tells his platoon.”You never know when the call’s going to come.”

The what-ifs might be too much to bear when you’re in a desert on the other side of the world. Roy began the warnings even before the official notice came on Nov. 6, telling him to pack for 18 months in the Middle East.

Along with the rest of his group from the Maine Army National Guard – Company C of the 133rd Engineering Battalion – he’ll leave around Dec. 7.

“You have to take it like you’re getting a call at work,” said Roy, a 40-year-old father of two from Lewiston. To his superiors and the men and women in his platoon, he maintains a professional facade.

Beneath it, though, the reality sinks in: He’s going to war. And he doesn’t know what will happen.

“I feel selfish,” he said. “I’d rather be here with my family.”

U.S. soldiers have been over there for a year, though.

“It’s their turn to come home,” Roy said. “It’s our turn to go over. “

It will be his first call to active duty. He thought he was going to go before. When he signed up, one day after his 17th birthday, Iran was holding American hostages and force was being threatened.

Cold War skirmishes followed. U.S. soldiers went to Beirut, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf and Bosnia.

No one called Roy.

So, the part-time soldier went to work for Lewiston, becoming part of the water and sewer crew of the city’s Public Works Department. He married Diane, his wife of 20 years. They have two children: Jessica, 15, and Jonathan, 13.

Roy also volunteered for the Honor Guard. The precision group represents the service at funerals, parades and holidays.

He joined to honor the veterans’ sacrifice. This Tuesday he honored them, while knowing he would soon be one, too.

At a Veterans Day ceremony in Augusta, he stood at attention and fired his rifle on cue, just as he always does. And he thought about being in Iraq.

Maybe he’ll go there. Maybe it will be somewhere else in the Middle East. He didn’t yet know where.

On Thursday, Roy spent part of the day caring for his daughter, who is recovering from knee surgery. He’s been spending time with his son, too, taking him to hockey practice and watching him skate.

“That’s my way of dealing with this,” he said.

Other guys have their own ways. Some are preparing the wood for the home fires and getting their houses ready for winter, he said. They imagine the snowstorms they’ll miss.

With an 18-month deployment planned, though, the soldiers could be gone for two winters.

Roy believes his wife can run the household without him. More importantly, he knows she’s safe, he said.

These days, he imagines doing his job in the Middle East, where so much is uncertain right now. People are hurt there and families are broken. Only a few things will matter, then.

“You have to believe in what you’re doing,” he said. “God will give you no more heartache than you can handle.”

But knowing that loved ones will be waiting will be a source of strength, he said.

“You know that your family is going to be safe,” he said. “It will get me through.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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