Worried wife: Rebecca Stevens lives in fear of her husband being killed in Afghanistan
Rebecca Stevens has meticulously planned every single detail of her husband"s funeral. She knows the hymns he would like, the pall bearers he would choose to carry his coffin into the church and exactly where he will be buried.
Sadly, she also knows in stark detail the emotions that will flood through her on the day. She has seen too many other widows make the lonely walk behind their husband"s coffins to remain in ignorance.
Rebecca"s husband, Warrant Officer John Stevens, doesn"t have a terminal illness. Instead he plays the grisliest form of Russian roulette with his life as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan.
And as a solicitor specialising in family law, Rebecca is definitely no fool.
"I am an extremely positive person - we both are," says the 32-year-old mother of Josh, nine, and William, four.
"But when your husband is on the front line, as John is, you can"t bury your head in the sand.
"Before he left for his first tour of duty in Afghanistan, John sat me down and suggested sorting out his funeral arrangements. To an outsider I know it must sound utterly macabre. But John was simply being pragmatic.
"I know he"ll do all he can to stay safe and come home to me and his sons. But when your husband has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, you have to face the very real chance that the next time I see him might be in his coffin."
John, 40, is one of the Army"s elite band of bomb disposal experts. A tightly knit brotherhood, they have been rocked by five deaths in Afghanistan alone. As the war intensifies, they deal with at least five bombs every single day and are considered high value targets by the Taliban.
The death toll of soldiers in Afghanistan recently reached 263 - more than the number who perished in the Falklands War.
More...Meet Treo, the hero army dog who took on the TalibanTears for a hero: Tough soldiers weep for Prince Harry"s "legend" friend killed in AfghanistanWomen set to serve in submarines as Britain follows U.S. Navy ruling
The most dangerous job of all belongs to the bomb disposal experts. Two have been blown up on duty in the past few months. As we meet at their home outside Bath, surrounded by toys and school photos, the dangers seem a nightmare happening on another planet.
For this very ordinary family, the dangers posed by the Taliban are horrifically real. On the day we meet, John"s comrade, Captain Daniel Read, is being buried.
The 31-year-old died while trying to disarm an explosive device laid by the Taliban. He had just returned to Helmand Province after two months recovering in Britain from injuries suffered in an earlier blast.
But he had begged to return early to replace Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, who died last October in his final mission before returning home. John is waiting for a date to return to Afghanistan.
So what makes a man choose to put his life on the line every working day? And how do his family survive the nail-biting wait to know if he will be coming home?
"John doesn"t tell me everything - it"s too shocking," says Rebecca. "But some of the things have left my hair standing on end. Sometimes I look at my husband - a loving father, a great cook and a dab hand with the iron - and can"t believe that he lives his life on a knife edge."
Rebecca was 20 when she met John at her sister"s wedding in 1998. She was the bridesmaid, he was a friend of the groom and it was full-blown passion at first sight.
"In his speech, my dad joked that he"d got another daughter - me - who he"d like taken off his hands," she laughs. "John was sitting next to me and I remember teasing him: "You"re the man I"m going to marry." And I meant it. He was gorgeous - and a fantastic listener with this amazing inner calm and self-assurance. We talked and talked."
Precious family time: Rebecca Stevens (left) and with her husband John - his face obscured for security reasons - and their sons, Josh and William
John joined the Army 18 years ago after taking a two-year engineering course. He was then hand-picked for the elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment.
At the end of the wedding, they swapped phone numbers. But, as the days ticked by and John failed to ring, Rebecca became increasingly anxious. Finally she rang a mutual friend, pretending that she"d left her purse in John"s car and needed to get in touch.
But John had lost her number. And he"d rung the same friend with an almost identical ruse - that he"d left a tie pin with Rebecca.
"We started dating and three months later I got my first taste of Army life," says Rebecca. "John was posted to Canada. We wrote, but I missed him like mad.
Although John had told me that he was with the Royal Logistics Corps, I still didn"t really understand his job. People imagine that guys who risk their lives are gung-ho action heroes, racing around the world and boasting about their exploits.
"John is the antithesis of that. He is extremely gentle, modest and unassuming - it"s one of the things I love about him. When we first started dating my grandfather was quite poorly. At family functions, John would always ensure he was the one who wasn"t drinking, so he could take Grandad home.
"I guess the only clues are that he is incredibly meticulous. When he irons my blouses, there isn"t a wrinkle in them and he even irons creases in jeans.
"So, even when we married in 1999, I didn"t fully appreciate what he did - or rather the danger he was in. I remember asking him: "So what exactly do you do every day?" and John just said: "Oh, it"s mostly paperwork."
"When I pinned him down, he explained that he kept people safe. That"s honestly how he sees his work. He believes passionately in saving lives and is prepared to put his own life in danger. And all without any big show.
"So I didn"t worry about the risks because he made light of them. It"s the way he is. Besides, when we first married, no one could have predicted the deadly threat of terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan
"I realised John would be away a lot and I wanted my own life and career. So I started a law degree at Oxford Brookes University."
WHO KNEW?There are 17,900 service women in the British military only four of whom are bomb disposal experts
But the reality of John"s job was hammered home within a few months. After being specially trained to deal with highly sophisticated explosives in a warzone, John was posted to Northern Ireland.
Rebecca was seven months pregnant with their first son when, idly scanning the newspaper one morning, she found herself looking at John"s face.
"He was on the front page of the paper, wearing goggles, dealing with the aftermath of an explosion. I sat there rigid with shock," she says. "It"s one thing knowing what your husband does for a living; it"s quite another seeing the reality. John still said very little about his job - he didn"t want to worry me and he knew he had to be extremely cautious on phone lines because his work was so sensitive.
"But I knew I couldn"t bury my head in the sand any more. It wasn"t fair on him. If I didn"t try to share John"s world, we would drift apart. I told John I needed to know everything.
"It was a relief for both of us. Now, after every tour of duty in a warzone, John comes home and we have a debrief, though there are things I"d much rather I didn"t know because it leaves me scared."
Their first baby, Josh, was born in 2000. And Rebecca rapidly found herself struggling with the reality of being an Army wife while trying to pursue her studies. John saw their baby for just eight weeks during his first year.
Based in Didcot, Oxfordshire, far from family and friends, it was tough. But then tragedy hit the family. The couple"s second son, Matthew, was born in 2001. He failed to thrive and, when he was three months old, he was diagnosed with the very rare Pompe Disease, an inherited metabolic disorder.
Tests showed that Matthew"s heart was fatally enlarged. Doctors explained that he would live less than a year. In fact, he died in Rebecca"s arms, on January 2002, a week after leaving hospital. He was just four months old.
"John is incredibly tough - he must be to do his job," says Rebecca. "But, when Matthew died, we both wept and wept. I loved John all the more because he was never afraid of showing his emotions. As he held our son for the last time, he was so tender.
"John"s seen innumerable dead bodies, but losing our son touched him like nothing else."
Fallen comrades: Bomb disposal experts Captain Daniel Read, left, Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid have lost their lives fighting for their country
John had been due to go to the Middle East. But when their baby died, the Army gave him a training job which meant he could go home every evening. Although the couple were told they faced a one-in-four chance of having another baby with Pompe Disease, they decided to take the risk. William was born in May 2005.
However, although clear of the disease, he weighed just 3lb 13oz and was very sickly.
"We are extremely upbeat people - it"s the only way we"ve survived John"s job - but we were on tenterhooks until William was born," Rebecca admits. "His first few months were a nightmare. He couldn"t eat properly so, when he was one year old, he had a gastric tube fitted."
Thankfully, William"s situation has stabilised and he is able to eat normally now. But to add to her terrible stress, in 2008 John was posted to Afghanistan. "As the day got nearer, I became increasingly frightened," she admits. "I had so much on my plate - the boys, my law training. But everything paled into insignificance."
Those six months were the longest of her life. But as John now faces a second tour of duty in Afghanistan, Rebecca is well aware that this time will be even harder.
"I try and tell myself that he"s always come back safe before and he will do again," she says. "But the job is becoming increasingly dangerous. We know so many of his colleagues who have been killed out there. And each death makes it more frightening for the other families.
"Luckily, William is too young to understand, but Josh sees the news and is well aware that his dad is in danger.
"When I told him that Daddy would be going away soon, he became terribly sombre. First of all he reassured me that he would make sure his little brother kept his room tidy.
"Then he wanted to know: "Will Daddy be all right?" I explained that Daddy had always come back safe and this time will be no different. It"s what I cling to, but I"m scared. I work with women who have husbands with ordinary jobs and ordinary lives, and I realise just how abnormal my life is.
"They"re extremely supportive, but I feel very isolated and frightened. I will get to talk to John only twice a week for ten minutes each time. I know he won"t want to tell me all that he has been through and I will be sure not to trouble him with my worries. Effectively, my life is on hold until he comes home safe.
"Every time my mobile rings I"ll wonder if it"s the phone call I dread telling me that John has been killed or - almost worse - badly injured. When I drive home from work, I know I"ll be panicking in case there"s a car outside my drive.
"Do they tell you bad news in front of your children or do they wait until the kids are safe in bed? I just don"t know. I"m determined not to cry in front of the boys if the worst happens, but that doesn"t mean I won"t be petrified inside.
"When he goes to Afghanistan, John will take a photo of us all and my wedding garter.
"They are little talismans to keep him safe. I tell myself that loving us and having us to come home to is the best guarantee of his safety I can ask for."
