A Bed of Roses

Within days of his first note, Joel began messaging Melinda regularly, greeting her with "Hey little hottie!" or "Hey lady! Wow! What a day!" During conversations that sometimes lasted four hours, they bonded over things large -- their devotion to their kids and their dedication to their jobs -- and small, like the fact that they both hate Chevys and love Fords.

Line troops don't get much sleep anyway, but Joel began sacrificing several of the four to six hours he was usually allotted to visit Camp Poliwoda's Internet cafe and score the only computer with a webcam. The 11-hour time difference and Joel's irregular schedule meant Melinda had no idea when he would contact her. She never sat home by her computer, but if he did come online while she was at home, she talked as long as he wanted. Several times she called in late to work, citing car trouble. And if Melinda was at the gym of her townhouse complex and Joel messaged, Brooke was under strict orders to call her on her cell phone so she could run right back.

Joel, it turned out, had much to talk about. He first enlisted in the military at 17, and combat had knocked him around since: He'd endured a broken ankle, cracked ribs, a gunshot to the chest, total loss of hearing in his left ear and numerous friends killed in action. But, he assured Melinda, "I'm not some weirded-out vet." Melinda found him warm and very funny -- the kind of guy to nickname one of his fellow troops "Holstein" because he'd taped a picture of a cow up by his bed.

Melinda's daughter Lenelle was skeptical of the relationship at first. "I was, like, 'Oh great, another Internet boyfriend,'" she giggles. Lenelle is petite and pretty, with platinum blond hair and a shy drawl. "I was, like, 'Can't you just meet someone normal without a computer?' But the more she kept talking to him and the more stories I heard, the more real I thought it was."

As one of the oldest guys in his unit, Joel wouldn't have dreamed of sharing his fears and desires, anxieties and emotions with those around him-- he knew the younger guys looked up to him, and anyway, they were going through the same things themselves. But online with Melinda -- who never judged or lectured -- he found himself able to talk freely.

"My interpreter was hit in the neck with shrapnel," he wrote in July, after an ambush. "Sliced the jugular vein and the carotid artery. My squad leader was hit in the back . . . I am still literally covered in blood." The squad leader survived, but the interpreter died three weeks later.

Thousands of miles away in Southern California, curled up in front of her computer, a cookie-scented candle glowing on top of her dresser, Melinda understood Joel needed, as he said, to "rant." Occasionally, she typed something reassuring like: "That is so sad. They should be thankful you are there though . . . I think it is an awesome thing you are doing."

"It is difficult for people to understand the dynamics of what really happened to you, if they have not experienced it themselves," Joel explains via e-mail. "Talking to Melinda is a relief from the things that happen here, like a mini-vacation. Sometimes it felt like that first breath you take when you have been underwater for too long."

From her side, Melinda loved what Joel saw in her: He was openly appreciative of her independence, admired her goals and the way she took care of her girls, and he regularly told her she was beautiful. ("In 20 years, my husband never did," she says.) If their conversations circled around to her ex, Joel always promised he would never betray her.

Melinda began sending him care packages: cheesecake mix, cans of Chef Boyardee, pictures of horses Brooke and Lenelle had drawn. She got a co-worker to burn CDs of his favorite music -- Eric Clapton, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Social Distortion. Feeling flirty one day, she e-mailed off a few lingerie shots taken with her digital camera when the girls weren't home. "To me, it was not a big deal. But then," she concedes, "there's that part of you that wonders if he'd asked any other girls to send some, too."

It's an entirely realistic concern. In an essay Buzzell penned for Nerve.com, he detailed the almost comic level of sexual frustration and predation he witnessed during his tour of duty: the empty tubs of Vaseline piled up in port-a-johns, the mad run on new issues of FHM and Maxim magazines (porn not being allowed in theater), the soldiers who persuade women to take off their tops on webcam, then offer their buddies a peek. On sites like AdultFriendFinder.com (touted as "the world's largest sex and swinger personals site"), a search for men in Iraq yields photo after photo of buffed Americans with their pants down -- many boldly requesting to hook up with not just one woman but two.

Still, Melinda decided to believe, to trust in her burgeoning relationship in ways that would have been unthinkable back when her first military suitors were sending offers her way. When, in late June, Joel requested a pair of her panties, she mailed him a new black thong from Victoria's Secret.

Despite her leap of faith, Melinda wasn't sure this peculiar relationship was "real" until one evening in early July, after she and Joel had been corresponding for over two months. Joel was gearing up for a mission while they chatted. She watched as he strapped on his ammunition and medical gear, teasing, "But it looks soooo cool" when he complained it was preventing him from reaching the keyboard.

Then Joel looked directly into the webcam and abruptly typed: "I really miss you, I don't know how I can miss someone I've never met, but I do."

"When he signed off, he blew me a kiss, and I remember this feeling coming over me," smiles Melinda. "I never cry -- just ask my girls -- but I just sat there with tears in my eyes thinking, 'I love him.'"

Four more pairs of panties, in various styles and colors, would follow overseas. Joel, in turn, displayed them, along with Melinda's photos, on a wooden shelf above his bed.

Although Joel is not scheduled to arrive until 9 this evening, Melinda is ready to walk out the door of her hotel room at 5. The makeshift "rose petals" are gently scattered on the turned-down bed, two disposable wineglasses stand waiting on a nightstand, and the room is sweetly ripe with Melinda's perfume, aptly named Ultimate Seduction.

A cold front is arriving in the area tonight, according to a maid at the Holiday Inn Express, who grumbles that she's had to work nine days straight because so many soldiers have been returning from Iraq. Melinda is wearing an outfit she modeled for Brooke and Lenelle before leaving home: faded jeans and a sheer, gold-toned blouse accentuating her small waist. Her blazer doesn't even have pockets, but she doesn't care. The goal is to look good, not to keep warm. She doesn't want to eat dinner, although she's had only half a tuna sandwich today. And she doesn't want a drink because what if she's in the bathroom when Joel arrives?

At 8, she's finally driving through Gate One of Fort Stewart in her rented Chevrolet Cavalier. The maid was right; a gusty wind has picked up, and the air is unpleasantly cold. Melinda gets lost finding the visitor parking lot, and when her cell rings, showing an unfamiliar number, her first reaction is exasperation.

"Hey, baby."

"Who is this?" she snaps.

"What do you mean, 'Who is this?' Who do you think it is?" says Joel. He's borrowed a fellow soldier's cell phone to call her. They're forming up, he tells her. He'll be there soon.

"Did you get the car? Do you have a hotel? Are we all squared away?" he wants to know before he hangs up.

"Baby, don't worry," Melinda is beaming now. "I took care of everything."

Homecoming ceremonies at Fort Stewart typically take place on Cottrell Field, an unglamorous expanse anchored by bleachers. To someone who didn't know better, it would seem like a high school football game is about to take place.

There are clusters of yellow, blue and red balloons and hand-lettered signs reading "Do You Remember Me?" and "The Boys Are Back!" About 600 people make up the crowd: grizzled old men in baseball caps, smelling of cigarette smoke; young women with glossy red lips and fresh French manicures; babies bundled so thoroughly in Polarfleece suits and hats that their round, startled faces are barely visible.

The cold, dark sky feels charged with anticipation.

Melinda stands at the foot of the bleachers, the wind whipping her hair across her face. "It's so cold!" she says, but she is smiling. "I can't believe Joel called!"

A lieutenant colonel standing next to Melinda asks politely whom she's waiting for. When Melinda explains she'll be meeting her boyfriend for the first time, he raises his eyebrows. "Good luck with that!" he chuckles, not unkindly.

Melinda shares in the humor. She knows how ridiculous it all sounds. Via the online boards, she's followed other women's stories of overseas relationships like hers, most of them careening in and out of commitment. (Just within the last few days, Nick Kauffeld's friend has publicly declared them permanently broken up -- she's now dating someone else.) Even Joel himself, she says, has worried about what will happen if they just don't click.

"'What if you hate me?' 'What if you hate how I chew my food?'" she mimics him. "But I'm not like that. I'm not like most girls. I'm not a gold-digger or a drama queen. I have two kids, so I'm used to adjusting."

Melinda's biggest worry, in contrast, is the distance that separates them. In a week and a half, she will return home. Joel is still waiting to see if his transfer to Fort Irwin, Calif., will come through, but he also wants to get his national paramedic's certification at a school in Georgia. And Melinda recently had an interview with ABC in Burbank about marketing Power Rangers -- a job she would love to have. And yet.

"We already spent nine months apart," she says. "I don't want to have a relationship where we only see each other once a month. I don't want to be getting married when I'm 50."

She may, she thinks, put out some feelers for a smaller job in Savannah, instead.

At 9:30 p.m., just after the Red Cross truck has run out of free hot chocolate and apple cider, there is a groundswell of screams from the bleachers. Turning the corner and coming into view are two yellow Penske trucks, followed by a small fleet of white, unmarked buses carrying the soldiers themselves.

After what seems like an eternity but is likely no more than 10 minutes, the emcee shouts something that is lost in the wind, the Army band begins to play, and the troops, about 300 of them dressed in light desert camouflage, almost magically appear on the opposite side of the field and begin marching in step toward the bleachers.

There is thunderous applause, cheering, whistling. More than one woman begins to cry. Melinda simply stares, a smile frozen on her face.

The soldiers, stern and unblinking, halt just before the bleachers. An officer steps up to a microphone on the field and officially welcomes them "back to the coastal empire" of Georgia. Only after the national anthem is played, followed by a halfhearted rendition of the 3rd Infantry Division's song, "Dogface Soldier," are the troops finally allowed to break ranks.

The happiest kind of chaos erupts. There is a rush on the field, which quickly becomes a tangle of teary embraces. Soldier after soldier, eager to be recognized, pulls off his helmet. It's startling to see how young most of them are, some still wearing braces on their teeth.

Melinda holds the glittery peach-colored sign she made (I LOVE YOU! JOEL. WELCOME HOME.) in front of her chest, as limousine drivers do at the airport. "I'm just going to stay here," she says. "Joel will find me."

Twice, soldiers walk by, pausing to stare uncertainly at the sign.

No, Melinda thinks. No.

And then, as if in a movie, the knot of people breaks, and out strides Joel. He is older, more handsome than his comrades, and he has a swagger that causes others to turn and stare. Helmet still fastened under his chin, four yellow silk roses in his front pocket, he walks directly toward the bleachers and points his index finger at Melinda. You.

And then he is lifting her up, rocking her back and forth until she is almost caught off-balance. She looks up at him, shuts her eyes, and they share a long, hard kiss, the welcome home sign crushed and forgotten between them.

For the moment, at least, her Prince Charming has come home.

Having an online relationship with a deployed soldier is "a less than ideal circumstance for starting a marriage," says Shelley MacDermid, co-director of the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University. But, she adds, "that doesn't mean it won't work."

"The road is steeper. You haven't gotten a chance to meet each other's families or understand the rhythms of your everyday life together . . . When you're worried if the other will ever be able to return home, that makes you much more motivated [to make the relationship work] than if you're living a boring life and someone's bugging you to do the dishes."

Four days after their first meeting, though, Joel and Melinda seem to be adjusting amazingly well. Joel is driving Melinda's rental car, and they are on their way to Tybee Island to have lunch at a place called the Crab Shack. They tease each other like an old married couple. "Joel snores!" Melinda announces. "He said he didn't snore, and he does. He told me to just roll him over, but I don't want to wake him up. I bought earplugs, but by the time I get up to put them in, he's already rolled over anyway."

"She's everything I expected," Joel says. "It really feels like we've known each other for years."

Melinda's met several of his fellow medics who, once Joel is out of earshot, mention how much he's looked forward to meeting her.

Like any military operation that has gone according to plan, though, there are also details -- kinks -- to work out. Joel is still decompressing from a year of combat: Large crowds, loud thumps and even dead animals by the side of the road (a popular Iraqi hiding place for explosive devices) make him seize up inside. Melinda woke up one night to find him patting down their bed in his sleep, looking for the gun he no longer carries.

"It's not going to be a fairy tale all the time," she allows. "We had all that romance, just not in person. Now we've cut to the chase."

Gathering up Joel's uniform to take to the laundry a day or so earlier, Melinda felt something hard in the chest pocket. Fearful, suspicious, she fished it out -- only to recognize the crystal clear stone, which contained the word "Kisses" inside. It was one of the first things she'd ever mailed to Joel, along with a note that read, "I'm sorry I can't be there to kiss you, but carry this with you every time you need a kiss."

It's been in his pocket the whole time.

Stephanie Booth is a freelance writer. She can be reached at stephaniebb@gmail.com. She will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.