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Posted on: Friday, March 12, 2004
Hurt soldier's wife 'worried ... proud'
By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
Elouise Burks knew if her husband's colonel was calling, it couldn't be good.
It was rare for her husband, Israel Burks, a Schofield-based sergeant serving in Iraq, to have contact with his colonel. For him to be calling her at home meant all was not well in Iraq.
"As a military wife, you see this on TV all the time. You know that no news is good news. You know someone is hurt if someone calls you," said Elouise Burks on Wednesday from her father's home in League City, Texas.
"I wanted to know if he was still alive," she said. "At that point, that was all that mattered to me. Any injury that happened could be fixed and if it couldn't that was fine, as long as he was alive."
Burks received word at 9:30 a.m. Monday that her husband, a forward observer attached to Company B, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, suffered multiple gunshot wounds after the convoy he was traveling in came under small-arms fire in Kirkuk.
She said she panicked when the colonel told her about her husband's injuries.
Her initial dread was quickly calmed by her husband's voice. Israel Burks was able to talk to his wife for 30 seconds, enough time to tell her that everything was fine and not to worry.
"I got to talk to him, and I got several other phone calls from his unit. My first inclination was to go to where he was once I knew he was going to be in the hospital," said the 25-year-old woman, who is pregnant with the couple's second child. "I wanted to know where (he was hit). I wanted to know if it had been a major artery, if it had hit a vein or if it was life-threatening."
Burks, an Alabama native, was shot three times in the leg, arm, and torso. Two other Schofield-based soldiers, Staff Sgt. Santiago Frias, 24, and Staff Sgt. Timothy Pollock, 25, also were shot. All three were flown to the U.S. medical facility in Landstuhl, Germany.
The soldiers were conducting a reconnaissance mission in the company's sector of Kirkuk, a city of almost 1 million people. They were in traffic when people in another vehicle got out and opened fire, an Army spokesman said.
U.S. soldiers usually travel in convoys of three vehicles.
The soldiers were wearing body armor with chest and back plates that can stop an AK-47 round, and the Army said that may have prevented some injuries.
Elouise and Israel Burks met on O'ahu and were married at the Fort DeRussy chapel in February 2003.
In December, they learned that Elouise Burks was pregnant with the couple's second daughter. In January, Elouise decided to move back to Texas and live with her father because her mother had died and because her husband would be shipping out for Iraq that month.
The Army has arranged for Elouise Burks to visit her husband sometime this week when he is transferred to a military hospital in the United States.
He faces 10 to 12 weeks of physical rehabilitation.
Elouise Burks, originally from Chicago, lived in Hawai'i since 1997 and said that she can't wait to return to the Islands. She said her 5-year-old daughter, Ayesha, knows that her dad is injured but trusts that he will be okay.
"This is his job. This is what he went in for. You have to be supportive, and not worry about it," Elouise Burks said.
"He's hurt, and we're worried and concerned. But we're proud of him. We know he's okay, and we're looking forward to him getting better, the baby coming; and we'll move on."
Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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