WINLOCK — Lou Meadows was clearing houses in Iraq in 2007 when he happened upon one with at least 15 insurgents that he said had enough firepower to take out his entire platoon.
So the sergeant had his section take a defensive position while getting attacked from less than 15 feet away.
“Shots are getting fired, but I’m not getting hit,” Meadows recalled Monday, as his wife Kristin sat next to him looking out the window of their Winlock living room. “I’m getting AK-47 rounds. Everybody is. It doesn’t dawn on me until later that I didn’t get hit when I should have.”
Meadows turned to his wife. He was responding to a question, but directing his answer toward her. “I don’t necessarily tell her about the firefights, but I tell her, ‘You must be doing something good over there because there’s times when I should have at least had a scratch, but I didn’t.’ Is it luck or is it someone watching over me? I don’t know.”
Meadows and his family will have years to figure that out now after a tearful reunion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord Sunday. Meadows returned on one of several flights that brought home the soldiers of the Second Infantry Division’s Fourth Brigade.
“There were just so many screams when those buses hit the field house,” Kristin said. “When I saw him, that was it for me. I kind of just lost it.”
For the Meadows family, this deployment marked what they hope will be the last of Lou’s 16 years of active duty in the Navy and Army. Aside from his two deployments during the current Iraq war, Meadows also served during Operation Desert Storm.
The recent deployments have been particularly hard on Meadows’ son, 13-year-old Kennan, who has been hospitalized for more than a year with Behçet’s syndrome, a rare and chronic autoimmune disease Kristin said is “kind of like having multiple sclerosis, lupus, and Crohn’s disease all wrapped up into one.”
The condition also causes a wide range of psychoses. In Kennan’s case, he was unable to distinguish between military personnel and his father’s role in the military. For example, when Lou was away on training maneuvers, Kennan saw footage of the Pentagon after it was damaged by the Sept. 11 attacks. “He just automatically equated the Pentagon getting hit with his dad dying,” Kristin said.
The 43-year-old said he will remain in the Army at least a few more years, but now the family is turning its attention to restoring the 100-year-old, 40-acre farm they bought in Winlock in 2007.
“We’re trying to turn it into a sustainable farm,” Kristin said. The family currently grows hay and raises sheep for wool and meat.
“She’s the brains, and I’m the brawn,” Lou said.
The family has not yet planned their first vacation, except to decide where they won’t be going.
“We’re definitely not vacationing anywhere close to a flipping desert,” Lou said.
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Brandon Swanson: (360) 807-8232
