Denise

Denise Dauphanais. The only civilian in the HOC House. She was a contractor working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She came in with us in her own SUV to Iraq. She was part of our convoy north to Baghdad. Short, slightly heavy-set, she was like most of the rest of us an adrenaline junky. In fact, she’d probably been shot at more than any of the rest of us with the exception of Top Carruthers. In Timor, she was part of the UN elections commission and was caught in a remote school in the jungle while it was being shelled by the Indonesian Army. She’s also been to Sierra Leone and Liberia. You take one look at her and you would never guess. She initially stayed in our house sharing Christine’s room. But she had to move to the Palace when eventually ordered to do so by her civilian bosses. One night Bill came into her room drunk, stripped naked, and laid down in Christine’s bed, which was empty at the time. Denise was in her bed. She just rolled over and went back to sleep. Denise was a great friend to us and an honorary HOC House team member. Even after they ordered her to go to the Palace to live, we kept a place for her at the house. They gave her an armored Range Rover. It was beautiful. Bullet proof glass, onboard GPS, every kind of radio imaginable, satellite phone, etc. I asked to show us the weapons panel. What – no air defense missiles? As she was the senior USAID rep in the Convention Center where she worked, we had access to her internet which was infinitely superior to ours. Also, she could do us favors every now and then. Plus, it was always cool for us enlisted guys to walk into the office of a high ranking civilian official without an appointment and past her minions and her call out our names and ask us if we wanted something to eat. Denise left in the fall and we lost track of her. Back home, we caught up with her again. Her last mission was with the UN to work on election monitoring in Afghanistan – never a dull moment.