The Afghan war widow

By her count, Barclay Murphy has e-mailed the White House and other politicians hundreds of times since her husband was killed in Afghanistan.

The messages usually relate a painful occurrence from what happened that day, with just enough detail to let the faceless staffer on the receiving end know that, after five years, her wounds haven't healed.

"Tonight my daughter cried herself to sleep," read one. Another described how her family sat down to play a four-handed board game.

"Maybe we can just pretend daddy is in the bathroom," said son Luke, 6, describing the empty, never-to-be-filled space across the table.

In April 2005, Maj. Ed Murphy of Mount Pleasant was killed in a helicopter crash while serving in Afghanistan. It seems so long ago -- much longer than Murphy could ever fathom that the United States still would be fighting in a poor country far away. What's more, she said, most Americans seem to ignore the stories of the sacrifices still being made every day by military families more than eight years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Tiger Woods' wife? Paris Hilton's dress? Murphy cringes when gossipy stories like these crawl across her TV.

"I think Americans' attention spans are very, very short," she said. The public will follow anything "until something 'better' -- and I say that very loosely -- comes along and takes its place."

Murphy, 40, of West Ashley, doesn't want the focus on her personally. She refuses to have her picture taken, saying her face should not take away from her husband's sacrifice or her support-the-troops message.

And while she questions the direction in which the Afghan mission has gone, she insists she is "no Cindy Sheehan" -- referring to the mother of a deceased serviceman who is a face of the anti-war movement.

Instead, Murphy's goal is to constantly pound away, reminding every leader responsible for sending U.S. soldiers into harm's way that there is a human cost behind what they started.

"You can change presidents, you can change (Congress). But it doesn't change the fact I'm left without a husband, and my children and stepson are left without a dad."

The couple met through friends during their college years. She was at the College of Charleston, he was at the University of South Carolina. She liked that he was "wickedly funny" and could talk about anything. They married and had two children: Luke and older daughter Elly, now 12. He also brought stepson Eddie, 14, to the marriage.

As a career military officer, Murphy knew her husband would be called into all types of danger zones -- 11 months in Bosnia for one. But then came the worst news of all: Ed Murphy, 36, was one of 18 people who died April 6, 2005, when the CH-47 Chinook helicopter they were aboard crashed 80 miles southwest of Kabul.

At that time, media coverage of military coffins returning home to U.S. soil in Dover, Del., was so tightly censored that Murphy had no idea what the process was when her husband's body arrived some six week later. They buried Ed Murphy at the National Cemetery in Beaufort.

For Murphy, the past five years have been a period of confusion, depression and mourning. Life after losing a husband "is truly just a roller coaster," she said. "It's not predictable on any cycle." Sometimes there are days she misses her husband so badly she can't get out of bed; other times she might draw strength from a joke she remembers.

Murphy's wedding ring came off for good only in the past year as part of her recovery process, but she has no interest in moving on.

"I feel very much still married to Ed," she said, pointing to the service band with his name on it that she wears on her wrist.

That brings out another issue close to her heart. Under Pentagon benefit rules, if a war widow remarries before age 57, she loses her health care, commissary privileges and other benefits -- something Murphy wants changed mainly for the benefit of younger women who become widows in their 20s. She's working toward that goal with the Gold Star Wives of America and the Association of the U.S. Army.

Murphy has adjusted remarkably well in the past five years after going through all the stages of recovery tied with losing a husband, local Army association past president Larry Dandridge said. She became so eloquent about her loss, Dandridge said, that the group asked her to share her experiences with other wives in similar situations.

"She's able to say, 'I've walked the walk,' " he said.

Raising children as a single mother also has produced hurdles to overcome. Daughter Elly has acted out in anger at missing her father, Murphy said. And Luke is growing more curious about his dad, even mentioning that he wanted to follow him into the Army, when he's old enough.

"Every single day he asks something about his father," Murphy said.

She described an incident where Luke picked up a toy soldier. "Did he have this kind of backpack? Did he use this kind of parachute?" Murphy quoted her son in asking about his dad.

Today, there are no signs the U.S. effort in Afghanistan is winding down. President Barack Obama wants 30,000 more troops on the ground by July, and at Charleston Air Force Base, the air-route workload has ramped up so much that the biannual air expo was canceled this year.

While Murphy supports the troops, she finds herself questioning the logic in trying to bring democracy to places where it's never been before. Afghanistan "is like a Medusa," she said. "If you cut off one of the snake's heads, you get five in its place."

As of Friday, at least 939 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbeckistan as a result of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press.

For the wives of men being deployed, Murphy said the best suggestion she can give is to talk through scenarios about finances and those awkward things about what to do to keep a household running.

"The biggest advice I can give any of them is to prepare yourself for the worst," she said. That includes writing personalized letters for children to be opened later.

In the meantime, Murphy wants everyone to remember that when a soldier is lost -- and there will be more losses in Afghanistan -- those men and women represent more than a ticker line scrolling across the bottom of CNN.

And that wars never end for those left behind.

Reach Schuyler Kropf at skropf@postandcourier.com or 937-5551.