BAGHDAD- It was June 6, 1998, and the 54th anniversary of D-Day was probably a day just like any other that summer. There was a good chance it was sunny in New York State, in a small town outside of Fort Drum where two Army officers had their own rendezvous with destiny. It's probably safe to assume, aside from the irony of two young captains meeting on the 54th anniversary of D-Day, it was a meeting much like any other.
A month later they went on a date to see "Saving Private Ryan" when it was released in late July of that year.
Eleven years later, Lt. Col. Hailey Clancy, of Mesa, Ariz., and Maj. Michael Clancy, Bronx, N.Y., are happily married and serving together as part of the 2nd "Iron" Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division and have been deployed to Iraq since April 2008.
Hailey, who serves as the brigade's logistics (S-4) officer, and Michael, who is the 40th Engineer battalion plans and operations officer-in-charge and the brigade engineer, are like most military couples in that they have not always been able to stay together, but try as much as possible.
We dated for about five years before we got married, they both said together, not in unison, but with the familiarity of a story told more than once. A story that consisted of being stationed in different places throughout the next five years and spending lots of time on the highway each weekend to see each other.
Two-years after they first met, Hailey left Fort Drum to attend graduate school for Advanced Civil Schooling at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Michael stayed behind for a year and moved even farther away for a job as an active Army advisor to a reserve component unit in Schukyll County, Pa.
"For about three years we were two -and-a-half hours apart by driving," said Michael. "We kind of leapfrogged each other, she went to grad school, I went to Pennsylvania, she went to West Point, then I went to West Point," he explained.
In the summer of 2002 Hailey moved to West Point, N.Y. to take a position as an instructor in the department of Chemistry and Life Science at the United States Military Academy.
"We had Interstate 81 pretty much memorized," Michael said with a laugh, talking about a highway that runs north and south from New York to Pennsylvania and beyond.
In early 2003 Michael, a 1993 graduate of USMA, was assigned to an engineer duty of constructing the new gymnasium at USMA, and at last they were together again.
After long distance correspondence and weekend drives for three years they were engaged for six months, and then were married on July 12, 2003 on the campus of West Point.
Although distance hadn't kept them too far apart for most of their time before marriage, it wasn't much more than a year after they were married that Operation Iraqi Freedom began and required one of them to deploy to Iraq.
"We met right after I had just gotten back from Bosnia in 1998," said Hailey. "So the whole time that we were dating we weren't deployed but as soon as we got married - between the two of us, we've been deployed to Iraq five times."
Being flexible with assignments, and volunteering to deploy together has enabled them to be together for the majority of the last five years. The first deployment however, was solo, and Michael left for Iraq in 2004 while Hailey stayed behind at West Point.
"I lived that life of being the person back home when your husband's deployed and you're doing those 15 minute phone calls at night," said Hailey. "Sometimes it's just frustrating. because you're like 'what is it like there'', and he doesn't want to talk about Iraq because he's tired, but I want to understand better what it's like where he is."
After Michael returned from his first tour in Iraq the couple had their first simultaneous permanent change of station move to the 3rd Corps Support Command in Wiesbaden, Germany. Michael was able to enjoy a short five months of dwell time before the both of them packed up with 3rd COSCOM and headed back down range. To them, it was just all part of what they needed to do in order to stay together as much as possible, something that Michael feels is important for any military couple.
"I would advise any other military couples to do whatever you can to stay together because you'll never know when in the future you might be forced apart," said Michael. "So if you're given an option that allows you to stay together then take advantage of that opportunity and stay together."
After their deployment with 3rd COSCOM, the Clancy's moved southwest to Baumholder and joined the ranks of the Iron Brigade in June of 2007. Ten months later in April 2008, they found themselves in Iraq together once again, this time working closer than ever before.
"The one thing that's different this time than last time is that this time we've worked together a lot," said Hailey. "I'm the S-4; he's the engineer, so all of the basing issues we've worked on together. Professionally, we spend a lot of time together, I mean people probably think we're talking about personal stuff, but 90 percent of the time we're talking about base closures, or base transfers."
"It's a little weird sometimes when we get mad at each other professionally," said Michael with a smile.
"You have to be able to separate the personal and professional, but it's impossible to separate them entirely. I mean, my best friend is on the brigade staff, so I get to know what's going on in the brigade building," Michael said.
"And I get a good idea of how things are perceived down at the units. I get an honest opinion from somebody," Hailey added.
The perks of being deployed with your spouse are great to be sure, but not entirely without their drawbacks either, the Clancys said.
"It's nice because we have no roommate issues," said Hailey with a smile. "Emotionally it's easier, but technically it's harder. There's no one back in the rear to ship you stuff or manage your stuff. I mean our car is in storage, all of our bills are forwarded to Iraq, so all of our paperwork we have to handle down here because there's no one back there taking care of business for us," she said.
In the end, they both plan on staying in the military, and have worked out new, nearby assignments in New York. Beyond the next assignment they continue to plan to stay together as much as possible while furthering their careers in the U.S. Army.
"I think with dual military couples you have to choose either to stay together or go for those assignments you'd really like to have," said Michael. "If we had both wanted our ideal assignments, we wouldn't be together; you have to take whatever you can to be together."
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