By Kristine Thomas
Wendy Pile didn’t recognize the man who looked like a “disheveled professor with long hair” who was hugging her children, Alyssa, 10; Chase, 8; and Amara, 3, at the Portland Airport.
“When they knocked him down, I realized it was David,” she said. “I honestly didn’t recognize him at first because he has lost weight and his hair was so long.”
“He looked like Einstein,” Alyssa added with a burst of giggles.
The Pile family recently spent two weeks together when David Pile came home from Afghanistan where he works as a contract plumber for KBR Inc. He went back on June 28, planning to work until October, when he’ll come home for two weeks. Then he goes back again to stay until Feb. 1, 2010.
“Our whole life has been turned upside down with him leaving,” Wendy said.
The Piles own Orion Plumbing LLC in Silverton.
Last year, as David watched construction jobs slow down and the economy take a turn toward a recession, he began to consider other options for employment. In July 2008, he applied for a contract job as a plumber with KBR. It wasn’t until December that he decided to take the job.
“Finances,” David said. “That’s the only reason I considered going overseas to work in the first place. Business has been slow.”
The income he receives as a contract employee is “comparable to what we were earning when it was rocking and rolling with our business and the new construction,” Wendy said. “Now with the mortgage crisis, foreclosures and the slow down in building, there aren’t many plumbing jobs.”
Sitting on his sofa with his daughters on his lap, David said it’s been a challenge to be away from his family. He has missed holidays, birthdays and his wedding anniversary. He hasn’t been there for moments in his children’s life or for his wife. Yet, both David and Wendy know the short-term sacrifice of him being gone for a year is better than the long-term consequences of jeopardizing everything in a floundering economy.
“His family has always been his main priority,” Wendy said. “We’ve been married 14 years and he’s always been the one to do what’s necessary to take care of our family financially – even when the decisions aren’t easy ones.”
David, 42, works at the Bagram Airfield, about 25 miles north of Kabul. He starts his day at 7 a.m. and ends it 12 hours later, often seven days a week. The airfield is like a small city with its own post office, hospital and more, he said.
His work varies from new construction to service jobs. What he knows about what is happening in Afghanistan comes from news reports and hearing military personnel talk. Daily, he said, he is reminded of those who have lost their lives serving in Afghanistan.
“The streets, buildings and camps are named after a person killed in action,” he said. “It is sobering everywhere I look to have places that honor the fallen.”
David served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division from 1985 to 1991 and was deployed to Panama and Honduras. When he first arrived in Afghanistan, he said, it was difficult not to be part of the military. “Every soldier was armed and I saw Special Forces geared up and going on operations,” he said. “I was an unarmed plumber.”
He considered becoming an armed private security worker until Wendy put her foot down. “I told him he has three kids and he has served his time in the military and has a combat Infantry badge,” Wendy said. “I told him it was hard enough having him there and I couldn’t live every day knowing he was on a combat mission.”
Then he realized the military personnel have their job to do and his job is to support them.
“I understand the sacrifice the military makes and I owe my gratitude to them for making my family’s life safer,” he said.
David works with people from all over the world, including Americans. “For the contractors, their story is the same as ours. There is not enough work at home so out of necessity they are working overseas,” he said.
Wendy has been running the family business and taking care of things at home. Their oldest children attend Central Howell Elementary School. She’s thankful her parents, Ron and Judy Maurer, are helping her. “This decision to have him working overseas is not without consequences,” Wendy said. “At the end of the day, I am wiped out. It makes a difference to have two parents caring for the children.”
They communicate using the Internet – through both writing and voice. Some days, they said, they don’t get to talk because his day ends when her day starts.
Wendy and David said they hope their children learn to make something positive out of something negative. David said this experience has opened his eyes to other possibilities for his career. “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. This is not a long-term career move. It’s a job to make ends meet until things turn around at home,” David said. “I would rather be working at home every day than having to go half-way around the planet to take care of my family.”
