Kansas Adjutant General's Department
06.13.2011 Story by Sgt. Jessica Barnett TOPEKA, Kan. - Deployments are a very emotional time for service members and their families. Many are so overwhelmed that taking pictures of these cherished milestones can be forgotten as they reach for their child’s first hug, or feel relief when their son is home again.
Caroline Dittamo, daughter, and Col. Michael Dittamo, commander of the Kansas Agribusiness Development Team 3, embraced each other after he dismissed the soldiers from a yearlong deployment to Forward Operating Base Mehtar Lam, Afghanistan, Nov. 23. (Photo by Jennifer White of Jennifer White Portraits) Photo by Sgt. Jessica Barnett
A former military spouse created a foundation of photographers to help military families capture these unforgettable images. Operation: Love ReUnited offers free photography sessions to service members and their families during a deployment. Each family gets two free sessions per deployment that can be used before, during, or after the deployment. The photographers agree to ship a 4x6 album (one per deployment) to the service member’s deployment location. This is done in hopes of boosting morale while away from loved ones. For a homecoming photo session families will receive a compact disc of the images.
Founder of Operation: Love ReUnited, Tonee Lawrence of Denver,
Staff Sgt. Andrew Isbell, a motor transport operator with the 778th Transportation Company, and resident of Wichita, Kan., took advantage of getting OpLove: Reunited photographs of him and his family, wife Ashley, and daughters April (left) and Amber (right), prior to his deployment to Kuwait. (Photo by Jennifer White of Jennifer White Portraits)
To capture these emotional moments, Lawrence has recruited more than 600 photography businesses across the nation, some with multiple photographers working on their behalf. To many service members, photos of family and friends are the life connection and moral boosters that make the time away from home a little bit easier to overcome.
"Many of us know firsthand, as children, spouses and parents of the military, how ‘real’ a deployment is,” said Jeni Turner, OpLove: Reunited regional coordinator for the Kansas City area. “It's not just a short story on the nightly news; it's not just a ‘support your troops’ e-mail forward...it's a family, broken apart to help our country for what feels like the longest year of their life. As photographers, we gladly carry the burden of sealing their moments of departure and homecoming in photographic history. It's the least we can do for the men and women who stand tall and defend our homeland.”
Operation: Love ReUnited helps families find participating photographers in their area through its website database at www.oplove.org. Families simply type in their ZIP code, contact the photographer and make an appointment for photos.
“I’m very grateful to OpLove and Jeni for the priceless gift of our photographs,” expressed Brigid Davis, wife of 1st Lt. Lindsey Davis, of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 135th General Aviation Support Battalion. “At that moment, all I could see or think of was Lindsey. My emotions were bursting. Now I can relive that moment over and over.”
First Lt. Lindsey Davis, platoon leader and pilot with the Company G, 2nd Battalion, 135th General Aviation Support Battalion, and an Overland Park, Kan., native, takes in the moment as he embraces his wife, Brigid, and dog, Izzy, at his homecoming ceremony of a yearlong deployment from the Horn of Africa with the Kansas National Guard, at Forbes Field in Topeka, Kan., April 22. (Photo provided by Jeni Turner of Jenifriend Photography)
The Operation: Love ReUnited website is set up only to help deploying or deployed families locate a photographer for two free sessions and the families are not obligated to purchase anything.
If you are a member or family member of the United States military, and are interested in having very special and touching images with a patriotic edge taken of you and/or your family before a deployment or during, and at your reunion, please contact a photographer in your area by finding them on www.oplove.org.