In May 2007, while working for the LPGA’s FUTURES Tour, I had one of the most unforgettable interviews I’ve ever had with a young professional golfer. Jenny Hansen of Nebraska had qualified for the Futures Tour and had left home to test herself against other young pros. But Jenny had already encountered arguably the greatest test of her life. She had just buried her husband, a soldier who was killed in Iraq.
Jenny played professional golf for a few years, but eventually returned
home to Nebraska. She later remarried and is a mom now.
I always think of Jenny and her late husband, Jeff Hansen, at this time
of year. This story was written years ago for the Futures Tour’s website and
probably only a handful of people read it, but Jenny’s story has stayed with me
for all of these years. I hope this story will remind you why we celebrate
Memorial Day. - LM
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May 28, 2007 -- Last Memorial Day, Jenny Hansen
went through the motions of celebrating the national holiday just as many other
Americans do every year. There were flags, fireworks, ice cream and
neighborhood cookouts for the official kickoff to summer. And in her hometown
in Cairo, Neb., a town of nearly 750 residents, everybody knew the ones who had
served their country and the ones who were now serving overseas.
But
Hansen’s world in small-town America changed dramatically last August. She was
working as a manager at an Appleby’s restaurant, holding down the household
while her husband, Jeff Hansen, served a tour of duty in Iraq with the National
Guard.
The former
University of Nebraska-Kearney golfer had no way of knowing how much her life
would change when the telephone rang at work one day and the soldier’s voice on
the line said, “There’s been an accident.
We need for you to come to Germany.”
So many
thoughts raced through her mind as she stood amid the clanging hustle of the
busy restaurant, clutching the telephone that had just delivered words too
potent to completely process. She pondered the weight of the words and the
nature of the accident. She thought of her husband waiting for her in a
hospital bed, far from the homey comforts of Nebraska.
Jeff Hansen
was a police officer in Kearney while Jenny was a college student. They met at
a college football game and hit it off. Jeff later asked Jenny if she’d like to
go for a walk. The two had their first kiss at the fountain on campus. When
Jeff proposed to Jenny during her senior year of college, it was on the 18th
green after the final round of the 2002 NCAA Division II Women’s Golf
Championship in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“Being with
him was just easy,” said Hansen, 27, a rookie on the FUTURES Tour this season.
“Jeff came and watched me play college golf and he loved it. He was simple and
happy.”
But two
weeks after the 9/11 attacks in 2002, the National Guard called him to serve in
Germany as support for U.S. troops. Jeff asked if his deployment could be
delayed. Jenny and Jeff were married on October 12, 2002, and he was deployed two
days later on October 14th.
Jeff was
sent to Bosnia, where he served for 10 months. He consoled his new bride and
told her it was “not a big deal,” and that everything would be fine. When he
returned home to Nebraska, he became a federal police officer and went to work
at the local veteran’s hospital.
“We were on
the fast track,” said Jenny. “I had a great job managing the restaurant and he
had a great job. We had bought a house, had cars, a boat and a dog. We were
getting ready for the next thing.”
But the
next thing was a new request by the U.S. Government. Jeff left for Iraq in
October 2005. Along with so many other families in the area, Jenny said goodbye
to her husband at the air base in Lincoln, Neb.
As a
Cavalry scout, his job in Iraq was to go ahead of troops or units of soldiers
to secure an area for others to follow. The job was dangerous and this time,
Jenny knew her husband was using his experience as a police officer on a much
larger scale than anything he had ever known back home in Nebraska.
“He was
never scared to go,” she said. “In fact, he wanted
to go and believed that’s what he needed to do. He felt he was in Iraq for me,
just as he was there for the children of Iraq. It was like he always had a
bigger purpose.”
One of
Jeff’s duties in Iraq was protecting a specific canal. One night last August,
he and three other soldiers drove their Humvee alongside the canal during a
fierce sand storm. Suddenly, their vehicle hit a large sinkhole and the Humvee
flipped over, pinning the soldiers under water.
Jeff Hansen
normally rode in the front of the vehicle, but when he was pulled from the
water, he was in the rear of the Humvee where the other soldiers normally rode.
The three other soldiers were rescued, which the U.S. Army believed were likely
freed by the Nebraskan. Jeff was eventually airlifted from the accident scene,
but that evacuation was hampered by the raging sand storm.
“They
resuscitated him, but they couldn’t save him,” said Jenny.
Jenny
boarded the plane to Germany, not really knowing what she would find. She rode
alongside her mother, Becky Deines, and Jeff’s father, Bob Hansen. Jeff’s
mother had succumbed to cancer two months earlier, so the members of the two
families clung to each other as they crossed the Atlantic, hoping for the best
and dreading the worst.
“I
convinced myself that he would hear my voice and it would be a medical
miracle,” said Jenny. “When we got there, Army ministers briefed us on what we
would see. I went into his room and he was lying there, hooked up to a machine.
He had a scar on his chin and I kept touching the scar and just trying to
believe it was all going to be alright.”
But in that
hospital room, the soldier’s bride and former NCAA Division II All-American
golfer, came to a sudden crossroads in her young life.
Gone were
those easy days of dogs barking across whispering cornfields or shouts of
touchdown triumphs for the home team. Gone was the laughter and the kiss at the
fountain. Gone was the uncomplicated innocence of small-town America.
This was
Germany, miles from home. This was war. This was the most unbelievable
circumstance she could ever imagine.
And now, at
age 26, she was being forced to make the biggest decision in her life. Jeff
Hansen, at age 31, had made the ultimate sacrifice. And as she stared across
the hospital bed at the man with whom she had planned to spend the rest of her
life, Jenny knew that her husband would never really come home.
“Sometimes,
you just make a decision,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t an option. I guess I
can second-guess it for the rest of my life, but we found peace with the
decision we had to make.”
The
breathing ventilator was turned off. The family huddled together. An hour
later, Jeff Hansen was gone.
“It was
like he was waiting for it to be OK,” Jenny said.
Four days
later, Jeff Hansen was buried with military honors at the Lutheran Church in
Minden, Neb. A group called “The Patriot Guard” escorted the family to the
burial services, keeping their roaring motorcycles between the family and anti-war
protestors.
It was
surreal. It was numbing. It was something for which she could never have been
prepared.
And then a
letter arrived at Jenny’s home. It was from Jeff.
Weeks
earlier, she had asked her husband what he thought about her trying to play
golf professionally. She wanted to test herself and see if she had what it took
to compete on the next level. Jeff had written to his wife to say that he was
glad she had refocused on golf. The timing of the letter was uncanny. He was
gone, but his words of support were as strong as ever as she struggled with
what her future held.
“The letter
told me to find the focus and dedication that I needed in my life and if there
was something I wanted to do, to just do it,” she said. “I still read that
letter all the time. I think Jeff wanted me to find new meaning in my life and
to not be afraid to try.”
As chance
would have it, Hansen traveled to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship
last October, where she met teaching professional and former LPGA Tour member
Sue Ertl. Ertl was moved by the Nebraskan’s personal story and her
determination to begin taking bold new steps in her life. Ertl began working with Hansen as her golf
instructor.
“It’s easy
to watch TV and to know there’s a war going on from afar, but it’s a lot
different to know someone who’s been personally touched by this and to see her
make a life transition because of it,” said Ertl, who played on the LPGA Tour for
11 years. “I guess none of us can relate to what she’s going through, but she’s
committed to chiseling out her new life. Jenny’s using golf as a bridge between
now and what’s next.”
What’s next
for Hansen took her out of Nebraska. She earned playing status last November at
the FUTURES Tour’s Qualifying Tournament and moved to Florida to live with an
aunt so she could practice and compete during the winter months. Hansen turned
professional in January this year. She has gotten into tournament fields twice
this season on the FUTURES Tour, missing the cut in both, but walking away with
the assurance that this is a personal challenge she must attempt.
“I’m proud
that she felt strong enough to be able to try this,” said Jenny’s mother, Becky
Deines. “Jeff always wanted Jenny to play golf and she knows this is what he’d
want her to be doing. I don’t want her to look back and say, ‘Why didn’t I take
a chance?’ Maybe too, it will help heal the hurt and allow her to move on.”
Hansen knows
that being successful on the tour is a long way from her days as the individual
champion of the 2002 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and the 2002 NCAA
Division II Western Regional Championship.
She knows
there is much to learn as a young pro. And she recognizes that there are still
plenty of days when she longs for a life untouched by war and unmarred by
heartbreak.
“You always
know in a marriage there’s going to come a time when you have to say goodbye,
but you think you’ll be in your 70s or 80s and that maybe you’ll live with the
loss for only a few years,” she said. “I’ll deal with this for 70 years. You
don’t really move on. You move with it.”
Hansen
wears her husband’s military identification “dog tags” underneath her golf
shirts and carries a Ping golf bag that has a digital military print on it. She
has received some 3,000 letters, 20 handmade quilts and a gaggle of crocheted
angels and butterflies from supportive military families and individuals around
the nation. She appreciates each gesture and knows the last nine months would
have been even more difficult without the help of others.
“I know
things are going to be up and down for a while and I’ll give myself time,” she
said quietly. “But I don’t feel like I walk alone. I have an angel walking every
step with me.”
- Lisa D. Mickey, May 25, 2015
