Last few entries of a journal found among the belongings of Sgt. Douglas McBride.

2004 March 15, 2004

I was crushed. In the six months that I have been stationed in the Middle East, I have sent and received over one hundred letters and emails to my wife of three years. At first, her letters or emails arrived daily, sometimes even more than once a day. Most of my pay was going to our joint bank account in Kansas were we lived when I was stationed in the United States.

I should have suspected that things were not going well when her letters started slowing down, with the last email that I got from her before today having a sent date of two weeks ago. Then The Letter came with a postmark of the first of March.

Dear Doug,

Today I found out that I am just over five months pregnant. I want a divorce as soon as possible so I can get married with my baby’s father.

The two of us are very much in love and we have been going out for the past five months.

Please to not try to contact me again.

Love, Susan

While reading the letter I thought “my wife has just admitted to have cheating on me for almost six months, and she still dares to claim she loves me! I don’t believe her audacity.”

2004 March 17

I was able to go to the administration tent today after explaining my situation to Captain Murphy, my Commanding Officer. While there, I tried, but I was not been able to get my wife’s name removed from my dependent’s list. When I went to the JAG office I was told that I could not remove my wife completely from my will since she would probably contest any new will without her and win, at least while we were still married.

I ended up writing a new will that stated that if I was married at the time I died, my wife would receive half of what I own, with the other half going to my brother and my sister. Otherwise, all my assets would be split evenly between my two siblings or their estates.

When I was done writing the new will, I mentioned that I was glad that did not have any kids so I did not have to make provisions for them in my will. The first lieutenant I was working with mentioned that it would be wise to include provisions for any future kids as well, in case I had some but died before I updated my will.

In my second attempt at writing out a new will, I stated the following. My wife would get one third of my inheritance. Any children that I either adopt or are proven to be mine via a DNA test would share a third (to be held in trust by my sister or her estate for them until they turned twenty-one or graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree — whichever came sooner). The remaining third would be split between my siblings. I kept the provisions for splitting my inheritance between my wife and my siblings or just among my siblings. I also added a paragraph that stated that if both my siblings proceeded me in death, my inheritance would be split between the two of their estates.

I also started the divorce proceedings going though one of my friends who I given a limited Power of Attorney to prior to my deployment. He was limited to being able to file for divorce for me or to ensure that my wife and house were taken care of in case something happened to my wife that prevented her from doing that herself. I had given my soon to be ex wife a general power of attorney before my deployment started, but while I was at the JAG’s office I filled out the paperwork for that to be revoked.

2004 March 20

Today I received a letter from a friend saying that she had seen my wife and James Singletary exiting a motel room hugging and kissing each other.

If anything, that letter was a bigger blow to me than the first letter I received this week. James had been my best friend besides my wife, and he was apparently the reason she was divorcing me. Fortunately, I had given the limited power of attorney to a lawyer friend of mine.

Major Edward Collins reread the last few entries of the journal again. Sgt McBride had been leading his squad on a patrol when they were ambushed by a group of over 100 insurgents on March 21st. After verifying that his squad was alive but pinned down by gunfire from at least three positions, Sgt McBride picked up his M16mk2 and charged the first enemy position. He was wounded as he attacked, but he managed to over take that position, emptying his magazine in the process. With one of the weapon that had been used to pin down his patrol and a couple of grenades, he proceeded to the second position that was attacking his men.