A long, lonely countdown in Lincoln Wife of guardsman proud of his work in Iraq, recalls several close calls

LINCOLN – Fifty-three days.

There were 53 days left Wednesday until Maj. John Nelson leaves Camp Marez in Mosul, Iraq, and his wife, Hattie Lynn Nelson, is counting every one. Whether she is in her office at Evergreen Enterprises on West Broadway or at home with three of their five children, Mrs. Nelson is doing a silent countdown.

And she’s praying that her husband stays safe.

“In 53 days he’ll be out of the country. For 53 days I can hang,” she said Wednesday. “He won’t be back in the states, but he will be out of that country, so I can hang for that long. We started counting down when he had 90 days left, and it hasn’t always been easy. He’s had a few close calls.”

The 51-year-old National guardsman was just sitting down to lunch – a cheese and chili dog with onions – in his unit’s mess tent on Dec. 21 when an explosion killed 22 people, including two soldiers from his 133rd Engineer Battalion. The mass-casualty plan Nelson devised is credited with helping save many lives from that explosion.

During a 20-minute telephone conversation she had with her husband early Wednesday, their third since Christmas Eve, Mrs. Nelson learned that her husband is tired but upbeat despite the attack, which left him with minor shrapnel wounds to his neck and back.

The Nelsons, who have lived in Lincoln since 1995, talked about mundane things: Christmas and how it went, the real estate management business the two share, the children and how they are faring in school and, of course, his welfare.

“He’s doing very well and he’s still working, and that’s important,” Mrs. Nelson said. “He needs to be with his men, who did such an outstanding job through all of this. That’s very important to him. He can’t talk all that much.

“He’s just sore from the explosion,” Mrs. Nelson added. “It kind of picked him up and relocated him.”

The wryly humorous nature of her remark shows a lot about Mrs. Nelson. Despite the apparent grimness of her husband’s situation, and hers, she has a lively, buoyant sense of humor and a good deal of warmth. And as a former Army supply clerk herself with two sons who have served or still serve in the armed forces, she says she knows better than to inundate her husband with questions and worries. The Nelsons’ son David, 26, recently got out of the Army. Son Nicholas, 23, is currently serving in military intelligence in Fort Carson, Colo.

“I support the decision our leaders have made, and John and [her two sons] have decided to go and support those decisions,” Mrs. Nelson said. “Am I happy about it? No. I don’t think any army wife wants their husbands or sons or brothers sent away for a year.

“And there are a lot of things that go on that we don’t know about,” she added. “You just hope that he knows better than to take the risks that the 20-year-olds take.”

John Nelson’s twin brother, Charles R. “Rob” Nelson, said he finds a lot to admire in his brother and sister-in-law.

“She is a very, very strong lady,” he said during a telephone interview from his home in Huntsville, Ala. “She has a good business sense and she is able to compartmentalize. She always has that part of her that’s trying to deal with the fact that John is over there and, like the other soldiers, in danger. But then again she realizes that he is counting on her to keep the business going and keep that family entity going.”

Still, Mrs. Nelson jokes that she is going to kill her husband for putting her through this terrific stress. “Oh, he’s not doing this to me again! They missed! I won’t!” she joked.

She found irony in John Nelson’s not usually eating lunch in the mess tent, but being irresistibly drawn there the day of the attack by the cheese and chili dogs the mess was serving – “and the onions! Don’t forget the onions! The onions are very important,” she said. “That will probably be the first thing he eats when he gets home.”

She said she is deeply proud of her husband, who won a Bronze Star during the first Gulf War. In their conversations, she said, he always mentions the young medics under his command and his high regard for their handling the horrific explosion with such professionalism and care.

“I think what impresses me the most about him through this is how he had the foresight to plan for this [attack],” Mrs. Nelson said. “He knew something like this was going to happen and he wanted them to be ready. And they were.”

Not that her pride or the tears she has shed will prevent her from teasing him upon his return.

“When he comes back, I’m closing down the office and moving away and he can worry about everything,” she announced brightly. “Well, maybe I’ll take him along too. Yeah, he would probably like that.”

Just 52 days left.