February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
In the months that followed their July 2002 wedding, Freeman and Sipos had to concern themselves rather more with armor for Humvees, sand getting into everything, and the dangers of roadside bombs.
This was because the couple found themselves on an extended honeymoon of sorts — in war-torn Iraq and neighboring Kuwait.
The Dublin-born Freeman and New Yorker Sipos had known each other for years, but in the months after Sept. 11, 2001 they realized, as did so many, that life was short and eventually had a habit of demanding some serious commitment.
Both had volunteered for bucket brigade work at the smoldering World Trade Center. But they soon decided to take a far bigger step for their country.
Freeman worked as a carpenter, first with Local 608 on Manhattan’s West side and later as a private contractor. He was single and enjoying life.
“I was having a good time, drinking and gallivanting, but I started to appreciate things differently after 9/11,” said Freeman, whose entire family emigrated from Ireland to the U.S. in the early 1980s. “It broke my heart to see the Trade Center every day.”
Freeman and Sipos, whose father’s roots are in Hungary but whose mother, Margaret Conlon, is from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, decided to undertake two missions.
They would first sign a marriage register. Then they would sign military enlistment papers.
“We wanted to do something, give a little back,” Freeman said.
So Sipos, who holds Irish citizenship, signed up with the National Guard in March 2002. Freeman, just shy of 35, volunteered for the army. He had to be given a waiver because of his age.
Sipos was assigned to the 369th Infantry Battalion, the famed “Harlem Hellfighters.”
The couple were married in July that year and a few days later, Freeman was sent to Fort Sill, Okla., for basic training in the artillery.
In the following months, events moved rapidly for the newlyweds. Freeman completed basic training and was shipped out to Germany. Sipos, however, was sent to Kuwait where she was assigned to convoy duty in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.
Her duties took her back and forth over the border between Kuwait and Iraq. Freeman, meanwhile, kept in touch as best he could from Germany.
“In the fall of 2003, my unit got the news that we would be deployed to Iraq and we were sent there in February the following year,” he said.
The couple’s tours of duty were now overlapping. But they knew that getting to see each other was not going to be any easier.
But love has a way of bringing people together.
“The very first person I met when I landed was Michelle,” Freeman said.
His unit, now reorganized as an infantry combat unit and assigned to the First Infantry Division, had arrived at Camp Wolverine in Kuwait.
“We were assembled in a big tent and were being marched to another tent for some chow,” he said.
When Freeman marched out of the tent he saw Sipos sitting on a bench and reading a book.
“She had no specific information, just a feeling that my unit would arrive at this place at this time,” he said.
Unable to break marching formation, Freeman watched as Sipos tagged on to the rear. The couple had a hurried lunch together lasting all of 20 minutes.
In the weeks that followed, they were unable to meet. But again, Cupid smiled, albeit briefly.
“I was driving in a Humvee convoy out of Kuwait and into Iraq,” Freeman said. “There was a truck convoy coming south and it had stopped on the opposite side of the road a little ahead of us. I saw this girl with a scarf around her head standing beside a truck.”
Freeman could not make her out for sure, but something told him that he was looking at his wife.
Minutes later the convoys passed each other.
“This was Brian’s first time crossing the border into Kuwait, but it was about my hundredth border crossing,” said Sipos, who was going by then with the 719th Transportation Company.
“I knew the Big Red One was coming up and that Brian was with them. I saw the Humvee approaching and saw the driver.
“I was saying, is that him, is that him? He drove by and he waved. It was weird. He had to keep going. He was with his lieutenant and couldn’t have stopped even if he had wanted.”
Two days later, Sipos got some time and went to her husband’s camp.
“But he was gone,” she said.
Freeman had gone, all right. His unit has been moved to Baiji in Iraq, north of Tikrit.
Brian Freeman’s war had really started.
In the months that followed, he just about avoided an ambush and narrowly missed a suicide car bomb when he and several colleagues were, unusually for the army, late for a meeting.
“That car bomb killed eight Iraqis,” he said. “I was very lucky that day. My unit took casualties during those months. I lost some good friends.”
In one firefight that lasted five hours, Freeman and his comrades had to deal with one particularly stubborn adversary.
“There was a guy just across the street shooting rocket-propelled grenades at us.” he said.
The mortars, he said, which constantly targeted the base, were a “pot luck thing.”
Freeman, who advanced in rank from basic private to E-4 Specialist, was mustered out of Iraq last month. Sipos was waiting for him in New York when he got back from Germany. This time they could stop and spend time together on Long Island and in upstate New York.
She could end up back in Iraq. Freeman, meanwhile, will be sent back to Germany in a few days to serve out his full stint in the army.
Sipos is traveling with him, and the couple who went to war together are now hoping to get a couple of peaceful months in each other’s company — literally, not militarily.
“It was really tough, but I have no regrets,” Sipos said of her tour of duty.
Said Freeman: “I have absolutely no regrets. The army is a very humbling experience. I feel blessed.”