Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Sgt. Anthony Harmon of the 478th Engineer Battalion and his wife, Erica, live in Hamilton. She relied on friends for support during his five-month stay in Iraq. The Enquirer/GLENN HARTONG

HAMILTON - Like most couples, Anthony and Erica Harmon have dreams, ones that can be detoured but not derailed.

For Anthony, a sergeant in the 478th Engineer Battalion, it is the dream of leaving Army life behind someday and owning a sports bar in his native Dallas. It'd be a cavernous three-tiered place with plenty of big-screen TVs, the kind of place where the Dallas Cowboys might hang out, where sports fans might camp out for the Final Four.

For Erica, it is the dream of completing her college education and having a career as a surgical technician, a job where she believes she can do good things for people, where she can help patients who are frightened.

"We'll get where we are going,'' said Anthony, a 47-year-old Army veteran who lives in Hamilton and is one of a handful of full-time soldiers at the Fort Thomas-based Army Reserve unit. "It might take a little while, but we'll get there.''

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The couple, married for two years, ran into a detour last year when the 478th was called to active duty and spent five months in Iraq.

After nearly a quarter of a century as a soldier, it was Anthony's first deployment to war. For Erica Harmon, 28 years old and a student at Cincinnati State, it was an experience she hadn't anticipated when she married her fellow Texan.

"I'd never been around the military before; I had no idea what it meant to be an Army wife,'' said Erica. "It took a while for it to sink in that my husband could actually be going off to war.''

Anthony, who leads a squad of 12 men in the 478th's Alpha Company, has been in the Army a long time; he knew that sooner or later it would be his turn to go to war.

He has six children from a previous marriage - all, except one, grown and spread out around the country. His brother Herschel served in Iraq with a different unit; the two brothers were able to meet up briefly last year in Kuwait. A daughter, 18-year-old Lentuoya, is in basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.

"I come from a military background; I trained for this; I was prepared for this," Anthony said. "But I knew this was all new to Erica. That's why I worried about her home alone.''

Erica's family is in Texas and Louisiana, so she leaned on two friends for support: Liz McBee and Cecelia Casey, whose husbands are also noncommissioned officers in the 478th.

The three women talked almost daily, got together often for dinner, took shopping sprees to get their minds off the fact that their husbands were in a dangerous place halfway around the world.

"They were with me from beginning to end,'' said Erica. "I would have been totally alone without them.''

As the war began, Erica was addicted to the 24-hour-a-day cable news coverage, with its images of explosions, firefights and armored convoys racing towards Baghdad.

"I watched it constantly at first, then it got too depressing,'' said Erica, who tried to concentrate on her studies and her part-time job at Good Samaritan Hospital.

From time to time during his five months in Iraq, Anthony was able to call home, sometimes early in the morning.

"I'd tell her, 'Don't believe what you see on the TV; don't worry, we're OK,'" Anthony said. "I said, 'Wait for me; I'll tell you all about it when I get back.'"

Once, in Kuwait, he was able to borrow a laptop computer and send his wife an e-mail. But he had to use a female soldier's e-mail account.

"One morning, I saw this e-mail from a woman and it said, 'Hi Baby, I miss you so much,'" Erica said, laughing. "At first, I wondered, 'Who is this woman and why is she calling me baby?' Then I figured out it was Anthony.''

The Harmons can laugh about it now, seven months after his return.

But they know they could be back in the same position if the 478th were called to active duty again. Given that Anthony recently re-enlisted for six more years, another tour of duty in a war zone is not out of the question.

"One more hitch and I retire,'' Anthony said. "No more Army life. The only way I'll be sent overseas is for a vacation.''

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com