Military News

A Sailor's Story

Kristin Choe did not know what to make of the first beat-up, padded yellow manila envelope that came for her in the mail last year all the way from Afghanistan. The El Cajon toddler opened it very curiously, as if it was a gift.

Which it was.

The envelope contained a DVD of her mother, Lt. Florence Choe, animatedly reading to her “Cinderella.”

“Kids are phenomenal,” said Kristin’s father, Lt. Cmdr. Chong “Jay” Choe. “When the second envelope came, I couldn’t hide it. Kristin saw the envelope and immediately knew what was in it.”

The second DVD contained Florence Choe’s recitation of “Goodnight Gorilla.”

Kristin received just four yellow padded manila envelopes from her mother.

Before she was killed at age 35 last March in northern Afghanistan, Florence Bacong Choe had become a staunch advocate for reading to children. She accomplished this as an active-duty coordinator for United Through Reading, a San Diego-based nonprofit that helps unite separated military families by offering deployed parents the opportunity to be recorded on DVD reading storybooks to their children at home from more than 200 locations around the world, including desert camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Navy ships and USOs.

Jay Choe, 33, a urology resident at the Naval Medical Center San Diego, said his wife took great pride in her military service, particularly her participation in United Through Reading.

“I think she was more gung ho about the military than anyone I’ve ever met,” he said. “She was very proud to serve.”

A native San Diegan, a graduate of USD and

SDSU, and the daughter of a career sailor, Florence Bacong contacted a naval recruiter and enlisted two days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Five months later, she was commissioned as a Medical Service Corps member in the United States Navy.

Jay Choe met Florence Bacong at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where she worked as a health care administrator for Medical and Surgical Services and he worked as a surgical intern. After paying no heed to Choe for months, Bacong finally accepted a lunch date, and the couple married a little more than a year later, on June 21, 2004.

The newlyweds were co-located (a military term for married couples assigned to the same place) to Okinawa, Japan, where they spent a “three-year honeymoon,” Choe said. He was a general medical officer working with the Marines, and Florence Choe experienced one of her proudest moments in the military as a company commander overseeing 100 sailors and marines.

Kristin, who turns 4 on Nov. 29, was born in Okinawa. Shortly before her second birthday, the Choes were co-located again, this time to San Diego’s Naval Medical Center, he to begin his urology residency, she as an assistant to the executive steering council. It was a definite homecoming for Florence Choe, who was born at the hospital.

And then, the homecoming and the honeymoon were over.

Florence Choe was deployed to Afghanistan for one year to help run the medical station that serves U.S. and Afghan troops and civilians. It was the first time in her military career she had been separated from her husband or from Kristin, who was not yet 3.

“When Kristin came into our lives, it opened our eyes and brought new purpose,” Jay Choe said. “Of course, there are plenty of other active-duty military families, but until we had Kristin, we didn’t realize just how much they were sacrificing in terms of family and commitment to serve.

“Certainly, we wanted to better not just our world, but our children’s world, too.”

The Choes wondered how Florence could still be a part of her daughter’s formative years if they were separated by thousands of miles. Then Florence discovered United Through Reading at the Pat Tillman USO at Bagram Air Base and starting using the program to send DVDs to Kristin.

When Florence Choe arrived at Camp Mike Spann in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, in May 2008, there was no United Through Reading program. In her spare time, she got approval through her chain of command to start a recording location. She then enlisted the help of troops to build bookcases and created a warm, homey environment where troops could sit and read aloud in front of a rolling DVD recorder.

Florence Choe also wrote countless letters to friends, family and the libraries at the San Diego naval hospital and the El Cajon county branch, soliciting donations of children’s books. Not only did she obtain hundreds of books, she also was able to get blank DVDs, recorders and mailing materials and held a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“She was head cheerleader,” said Sally Ann Zoll, chief executive officer of United Through Reading in San Diego. “Once she experienced using United Through Reading for her daughter, she was already a believer by the time she arrived at Camp Mike Spann.

“She set about very quickly to bring the program there. Her goal was that every soldier coming through Camp Mike Spann would be able to use United Through Reading.”

She even recruited her husband, Jay, as the homefront coordinator.

“Getting the word out in a war environment, in her own free time, halfway around the world took a lot of effort,” Jay Choe said. “I think it goes to show how important it was to her — not just for herself but for other family members to be able to connect, too.”

While taking an afternoon jog along a path on the outskirts of Camp Shaheen on March 27, Florence Choe was killed when an insurgent posing as an Afghan National Army soldier opened fire. Lt. j.g. Francis L. Toner IV, 26, a civil engineer from Narragansett, R.I., also was killed, and a third Navy officer was wounded. Military officials said the insurgent killed himself moments after the shooting.

Seven months later, Choe and Kristin visit Florence’s grave site at Fort Rosecrans every week. They spread a blanket and have snacks, and Kristin brings pictures she has drawn in school for her mother. Sometimes, Choe and Kristin will write letters and leave them for her.

“Kristin is too young to fully comprehend the permanence that Florence has passed away, but she asks to go, and I support it,” Choe said. “Ft. Rosecrans is a very beautiful place, and it’s got the most gorgeous view of the water that is very calm. You can also see downtown and Coronado and the bridge, which I think is very appropriate for Florence. She was a true native.”

Article Source: Union Tribune
by: BY Caroline Dipping