In honour of Remembrance Day, Zac interviews CPT Matthew Dudley, Human Resources Officer of the United States Army, and his wife, Shannon.

When Shannon and Matthew first met, he was deployed to Iraq. Five months into his time there, Matthew came home for two weeks, and they got married. He then left for another seven months.

“There were some times that I wondered if I was going to be 19 year-old widow,” Shannon says.

“I had my first reality check after we got hit by a car bomb,” Matthew says. “That shook me because it made me realize, ‘Woah… I could have been disintegrated’.”

But their love and relationship remained strong, not without a lot of hard work and understanding.

“When you have a spouse who is a bit broken, you just have to be really accepting for who [they are]. You get really vulnerable really quickly because if you don’t, things just break apart,” Shannon says.

Thank you for your service, Matthew, and for your strength, Shannon.