Love Arrives in a Military Care Package

by Marilyn Loeser

It could be the plot of a romance novel — Pennsylvania woman sends care package to soldier serving his country in Iraq. They correspond, they fall in love and they marry one month after he returns safety from the war zone.

But for Army Reserve Sergeant Kenneth Feese and Tami Evans, this imaginative storyline is their reality.

"While I was deployed with the Army Reserve to Iraq in 2003, my best friend Sergeant Denis Hull had to go home on emergency leave," said Feese. "While home, he put together a care package to send to me and took it to the Montoursville, PA, Post Office to mail it."

Retail Associate Tami Evans waited on Hull and asked about his fellow soldiers and whether or not they would like to receive care packages from strangers. She said she and the other Montoursville employees wanted to support the troops any way they could.

"He gave her my name along with a few others," Feese said. "We were soon flooded with care packages from the Montoursville Post Office.

"Tami and I became pen pals; writing each other often," Feese continued. "As technology made its way to Iraq and Kuwait, we started e-mailing and calling each other on an almost daily basis. One thing led to another and we found ourselves falling in love."

The couple married in December of 2003, shortly after Feese returned from Iraq.

In 2004, Feese took the USPS exam and was hired as a part time flex clerk at the Sunbury, PA, Post Office.

Currently a part time flex letter carrier in Milton, PA, Feese is once again serving in Iraq on a one year deployment with 1-150th Assault Helicopter Battalion in Basra, Iraq.

"Tami and I have had an amazing life together for almost six years," Feese said. Army sergeant, letter carrier and husband; retail associate and wife — and they lived happily ever after.