In 2003, Shauna Berntsen entered Allen Community College on a softball scholarship. Not long after Valentine’s Day of that year, her enrollment was annulled and the 19-year-old was deployed to Iraq. She had completed basic training the previous year, but had hoped to postpone active duty service until after she’d graduated college. But, like thousands of other young Americans captured in the quickly churning machinery of that war, Berntsen found herself in no time stationed in Baghdad, attached to a unit from Iowa, running convoy missions down perilous desert roads 7,000 miles from home.
Even today, she recalls flinching at the explosions that ricocheted through the night air when she first arrived in that country. Eventually, though, she would master the grim trick of determining, by the precise whistling sound of an RPG, its distance from the base. A knack which allowed her to sleep easier. But, of course, such an unnatural derangement of the senses leaves its mark.
“To this day, I still can’t drive in big cities,” says Berntsen. “After Iraq, I can’t do it. Even as a passenger, I take a Xanax before I hit the city and I look down at the ground and I do not look around. … And, as you can imagine, I really hate the Fourth of July.”
In 2004, Berntsen was allowed to come home. Her softball coach at ACC renewed her scholarship. She was older than most of her teammates. She was considered a non-traditional student. Plus, she was moved to a new position, first base. But all that was OK. She was back playing the game that has been for her a long-standing consolation in life, especially during a tough childhood.
One fall night during that first year back, Berntsen and the team headed out to a bar downtown. “Girls’ night,” remembers Berntsen. There, she met Brandon Berntsen, and “well, then, you know — whoops.”
Pretty soon, Shauna and Brandon were a couple. Not long after, Shauna was pregnant.
The delivery was difficult — Berntsen’s hips wouldn’t open and the baby had to be removed through C-section — but ultimately successful.
Skye Berntsen was about 8 pounds and seemed, for a time, healthy.
Not long after her birth, however, Skye developed a chronic reflux disease, which appeared to cause her to stop breathing for long moments. The first time this happened, the Berntsens took their daughter to Children’s Mercy, in Kansas City, where they were told it was “OK,” recalls Berntsen. “They told us not to overreact.”
But then a month to the day after that doctor’s visit, Skye stopped breathing again.
It was pre-dawn, about 5 a.m. Skye was in the bed with her parents. Because of the reflux, after eating, Skye was supposed to remain sitting up for about 45 minutes. Both parents were exhausted on this night. Shauna asked Brandon to take over this round of watching Skye, so she could get some rest.
“I mean, she was right beside us. And when it happened — OK, I just forgot how to do CPR. I forgot. I forgot everything. I was lost. Brandon tried. But he couldn’t bring her back.”
Shauna dialed 911. Officer Steve Womack of the Iola Police Department arrived and began to administer CPR. As he carried Skye toward the ambulance, Berntsen remembers him saying that it was OK, he could still feel a heartbeat. She was 2 months and 16 days old.
“After Skye died, I wanted to go back overseas to Iraq. I just didn’t want to be here anymore. But they wouldn’t let me. They won’t let you return to service, if something bad like that’s happened.”
Berntsen stumbled under the weight of her grief for years, and does still. But, in time, the couple conceived a second child, Isabelle, now 9. “When I got pregnant with Isabelle, that’s when I decided to get out of the military. I didn’t have a choice leaving Skye, but if I stayed in the military, I was making a choice to leave Isabelle behind and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Next, there was Hunter, now 6, and Jaxson, 3.
