Photo By Sgt. Elizabeth Raney | U.S. Army Spc. Robert Cotton, a native of Holt, Mich., and U.S. Army Spc. Matthew...... read more read more
NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Soldiers often feel like family once they’ve shared living and work quarters with each other for so long during deployment. For U.S. Army Spcs. Robert Cotton and Matthew Condecon-Schwingle, the connection is a bit deeper.
Condecon-Schwingle, called Decon by his peers, married Cotton’s daughter, Kelli, not long before deploying to Afghanistan for his second tour. Both soldiers are Field Artillery Automated Tactical Data Systems Specialists assigned to Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, and both are currently deployed to eastern Afghanistan together.
“[Cotton and I] were friends since he came to the unit and when he had his family moved, I helped them move in,” Decon, a Milwaukee, Wis., native, explained. “She got a hold of his phone and called me and we just clicked.”
Cotton responded with a surprised, “I didn’t know that,” assuming that Decon asked Kelli for her phone number.
After the news was announced that the two wanted to get married, Cotton was a bit skeptical.
“She just turned 18,” Cotton, a native of Holt, Mich., explained. “I told them, you might want to wait. But that’s fine, you want to get married, you’re adults, cool, but just give it a little time.”
“Oh no, they couldn’t have that,” Cotton chuckled. “So they got married.”
“We started dating Sept. 23 and we got married Jan. 4,” Decon said.
The relationship between the two soldiers has not gone downhill in the slightest with this strange turn of events, but has possibly gotten even better, they explained.
“We get along real well,” Cotton said. “A year ago, I would’ve never thought in a million years that this would happen, but it did.”
“Decon is a good kid,” he continued. “Yes, he’s a good soldier, but he’s still a kid to me. He wouldn’t have been around [my family] if he wasn’t…a good person. I probably wouldn’t have even associated with him, and this would have never had happened.”
“I blame myself,” Cotton said jokingly.
After a few moments of clowning around and laughing together, Decon brought up what normally would be a sore subject between soldiers of the same promotable rank and such different ages.
“The most interesting part, as far as being in the military, is if one of us outranks the other,” Decon said. “If I outranked him, that’d be funny.”
Cotton just shrugged and said, “That would be fine. It’s just the way it goes.”
The two continue to work together and get along, sharing a unique connection with one another that exceeds that of a normal soldier to soldier bond.
For soldiers, the Army is often considered your second family away from home. For these two men, they may be away from home, but both will return home to the one thing that links them together… a daughter, a wife, a family.
| Date Taken: | 08.08.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 08.09.2012 02:00 |
| Story ID: | 92893 |
| Location: | AF |
| Web Views: | 733 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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