Neither Cheryl Teel nor her husband of 2 1/2 years knew how war would change their lives.
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Cheryl Teel’s second year in school at the UNMC College of Nursing Kearney Division was interrupted and her plans for a May 2004 graduation changed. Teel, a Broken Bow native, left a familiar place in January for a place in the Kuwaiti desert halfway around the world to ultimately support Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Her husband, Jeremy Teel, a graduate student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, temporarily lost the company of his best friend.
“It’s like having your best friend move far away,” said Jeremy Teel, a Maywood, Neb., native. “The one person you can trust and talk to about anything is not around anymore, and things begin to feel bottled up inside. When you do get to talk or send e-mail, you don’t want to share everything because you do not want to bring the other person down.”
Still, he doesn’t feel alone.
“I’ve never seen so many people that I barely know show so much kindness and sympathy,” Teel said. “People I’ve met only a few times call to see how I’m doing and send care packages to Cheryl. It’s amazing that war can sometimes bring out the goodness in people.”
With the news of Cheryl’s activation came his concern for her safety and her nursing classes. But he also felt pride in what she would be doing to support her country. “I fully support her service and feel honored that she is willing to sacrifice everything for what she believes in,” he said.
Staff Sgt. Teel’s job isn’t providing health care, but as a shower, laundry and clothing repair specialist responsible for ensuring clean laundry and showers for combat and other field troops. Besides food and shelter, it’s one of the most important jobs in keeping soldiers’ morale high.
The U.S. Army Reservist, currently assigned to 3rd Corps Support Command of Des Moines, Iowa, is now a veteran of a foreign war. This is the first time Teel, a U.S. Army veteran, has been activated for a war.
It began with a phone call last January.
The people of the unit she’s assigned to in North Platte were told they would deploy, but the timing was uncertain. So when a Des Moines unit asked if she could fill one of their positions, she said yes.
“Since it was only the third week of the semester and my unit in North Platte (a field service company) was already planning to go, we just didn’t know when, I thought leaving that early in the semester would be a good idea,” Teel said.
On Jan. 27, she flew to Wiesbaden, Germany, where she and her Reserve colleagues, as well as active duty members, spent time getting ready to deploy to Kuwait. Five weeks later, they left for Kuwait and arrived there on March 4.
“My first impression was, ‘Holy Cow, there aren’t any trees out here!'” Teel said. She also found out how easy it is to get lost in the desert during sandstorms that reduce visibility to the point you can’t see your hand in front of your face.
Her job in Kuwait is to manage teams of people who follow troops to provide support, and keep track of how many bundles of laundry are washed and how many showers provided.
She said she’s happy to be able to provide support and “make things happen … with just a little clean laundry and showers.”
“That has kept me very busy since the fighting has stopped because the ‘fighters’ are now realizing that it’s been a while since they have had a shower and clean clothes,” Teel said.
She’s also been delivering mail twice-a-day for soldiers who are too busy to get away. “Bringing the mail into here is one morale booster after a long day’s work. Since our phone communication is so poor, mail is the best asset that we have. It’s kind of hard to place a phone call out here in the middle of the desert!”
Teel said she’s learned many things while deployed, mostly about herself, including that arachnophobia is not a good thing where there are camel spiders that can run 10 miles per hour on four legs.
“In a new job, a person has to prove themselves to the more experienced soldiers. It’s also difficult for active duty service members to realize how hard it is for us to drop our lives for long periods of time and deploy to do our second Reserve jobs.”
The bond between Teel and her fellow colleagues, especially other reservists from Des Moines with whom she’s serving, holds them together.
“The camaraderie between the reservists is a ‘family’ bond,” she said. “We take care of each other regardless of the rank of the individual. I didn’t know any of the soldiers until I met them in Des Moines.
“We take care of each other like a family. Being in the military is like having two families – the one you go home to all the time and the other you go to once a month and two weeks in the summer and then to things like this…war.”
Staff Sgt. Richard C. Kreitzinger, of the Des Moines unit, who got to know Teel and supports her unit from Wiesbaden, said she is a true professional. “She has the utmost knowledge and is a true non-commissioned officer (NCO). We NCO’s live by a creed and Staff Sergeant Teel is a perfect role model for new NCO’s,” Kreitzinger said. “As a person there are none better she cares about junior soldiers to the utmost of her abilities. I am proud to have her as a friend and a fellow soldier.”
Teel said there’s another side to war, one that doesn’t reflect what’s seen through the eyes of television reporters.
“There’s a lot of behind the scenes planning and support that never gets mentioned. All that is shown is the fight…there is a lot more to a war than just fighting,” Teel said.
Her war experiences, though not as dramatic as those seen on television, have changed her outlook on life.
“It’s made me realize that money is not all there is in this world,” she said. “There are a lot of life’s little pleasures that I will just stop to see more often when I get home. Like the rain, flowers, grass to hold the dirt down, a gentle breeze…some of life’s little pleasures.”