Leif and Nikko were assigned contracted quarters off base from Fort Drum in the city of Watertown, New York. It was quite a long drive to the base for work, and Nikko got a job there working in a pizza place. I don't have the establishment quite right, but it was a sort of recreation center on base, as I recall. They each had to make that drive separately.
This photo is of them at the formal Battalion Ball held at Fort Drum on December 3, 1998. Leif had been in the army for 11 months, and they had been at Fort Drum together for six months. They had been married for three years.
I don't think that Leif's asthma had developed yet, and they were just heading in to the first severe upstate New York winter they would experience.
Although Leif wasn't keen about Watertown, there were things in the area they enjoyed, and although life as an infantry private was tough and finances continued to be tight, that first year they seemed to be doing all right, and they were coming home to Kansas for Christmas. Leif had been to Uzbekistan in the fall and now was back with Nikko. They were a handsome couple.
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