Wife never knew her husband was missing
His phone call from safety was first she heard of his troubles.
By Lewis Levine
Savannah Morning News
Pfc. Deanna Klein was returning from a week's visit with her in-laws in Kentucky. Southbound on Interstate 75, just outside Independence, Ky., she was stuck in a traffic jam when her cell phone rang.
When she answered, on the other end was the unmistakable voice of her husband, Spec. Jeffrey Klein, 20, who is deployed in Iraq as part of Headquarters Headquarters Company of Division Support Command for the 3rd Infantry Division.
"Deanna please don't hang up," he said during the March 28 conversation. "I'm OK, I'm OK."
Not fully comprehending what her husband was trying to say, she began to tell him everything that had been happening since they last spoke.
"You don't know what happened?" he asked her.
"No!" his wife replied. Only then did she learn that her husband had been missing for nearly a week in Iraq.
Klein, a mechanic, and Sgt. Matthew Koppi, 22 of Ashville, N.C., had been dispatched to tow an officer's broken vehicle. On the way, the clutch on their Humvee broke, stranding the soldiers in the hostile Iraqi desert.
They were ordered by a staff sergeant to stay with the vehicle and wait until they were picked up. Hours passed without any sign of rescue. The men set up a defensive perimeter around the vehicle, pulling shifts to keep an eye out for enemy soldiers.
For the next seven days, Klein and Koppi were separated from their unit, living off a five-gallon can of water and a box of MREs. They also scraped an SOS in the sand.
"Jeffery told me during the time they were in the desert, he was visited by curious Iraqi civilians. Apparently they were hungry, so he shared some of his food with them." Deanna Klein said. He told his wife he was scared during his ordeal.
The two soldiers were rescued by Marines who were flying a mission over the area in a Chinook helicopter. They were flown to northern Kuwait for medical checkups.
For the next several hours, Deanna Klein drove home in tears as she thought of the ordeal her husband had endured.
"I never thought it could happen to my husband. I had to pull myself together for the sake of the baby, and be thankful Jeffery was safe," she said.
Under Army policy, the next of kin is notified if a service member is missing in action.
Jake Umholtz, adjutant general for personnel at Fort Stewart, said he made a record search to see if Klein had been reported missing, and came up with nothing.
"This is not the way we handle situations such as this," he said. "I have no explanation as to why he was not reported."
Deannah Klein is thankful the Army never informed her.
"How would you like to get a knock on the door, and someone telling you the person you love is missing, and find out a week later he is OK," she said. "I don't know how I would have handled that."
Deanna Klein, 18, is assigned to the 92nd Chemical Company, 703 Main Support Battalion as a chemical operations specialist. She was training with her unit to deploy until she found out she was pregnant. The couple, who married in October, is expecting the baby this summer.
She is looking forward to motherhood and the return of her husband.
Jeffery Klein is awaiting orders to rejoin his unit.
