It’s difficult having a family member serving with the Army in Baghdad, but the people who love Edward Turgeon of Buxton are glad.
Since enlisting in 2004, the Bonny Eagle High School dropout, who seemed to be heading down the wrong road, has turned his life around. He’s carried the body of a dead buddy, and shortly after was injured himself in a recent roadside explosion. Turgeon’s mom believes her son might be dead if he hadn’t joined the Army.
“I really think it saved his life,” Tammy Turgeon said. “I’m glad he did what he did.”
Turgeon, now 22, dropped out of high school as a sophomore. His mom said he was a clown in school. The school department diagnosed him as having attention deficit disorder. “He got bored easy,” his mom said. “He couldn’t sit still.”
He got a job, working the graveyard shift at a flooring company in Westbrook. But traveling home from work one day, he feel asleep at the wheel, crashed his vehicle and nearly died. The cab ripped off his pickup truck and Turgeon suffered a concussion. His mom said a seat belt saved her son’s life.
His mom described him as a follower who never got in serious trouble.
“He’d go with the flow,” she said.
She said the girl he was seeing then was not for him. He drank beer with his buddies. But, “he didn’t fool mom,” said Tammy Turgeon, who works at 3-D Variety in Buxton.
The soldier met his wife, the former Jessica Rhoades of Limington, when she worked at a convenience store in Waterboro.
It was love at first sight for her. “I went home and told my mom ‘I’m in love,'” she said.
His mother encouraged him to find a steady job if he wanted to get married. He wasn’t working when he met her, Tammy Turgeon said.
Prodded to get his general education diploma by his mom and girlfriend, he passed the test without even attending classes. “I pushed him for that GED,” said Jessica Turgeon, a 2004 Bonny Eagle graduate.
Tammy Turgeon urged her son to get a job. A fellow store employee recommended the Army for her son. She persuaded him to join up.
He got his diploma in June of 2004 and a firefighter’s certificate the day before he left for boot camp that summer. A former firefighter, he had served on the Buxton Fire Department as a volunteer along with Alison Fernstrom, who is now deployed to the Middle East, too.
Turgeon’s love affair with the Army didn’t bloom early on.
“He hated boot camp,” his wife said.
Yet, his life-changing transformation began in Army uniform. Telephoning from boot camp, the soldier apologized to his mom. “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you,” she recalled her son said.
He and Jessica were married while he was on leave in October of 2004, after graduating boot camp. The wedding was18 months after they met.
He was deployed to Iraq in December 2005. An Army specialist, he is assigned to the headquarters company of an armored battalion in the 4th Infantry Division.
Turgeon received ear damage when a shell exploded beside his Army Humvee in September. Jessica Turgeon, said he sustained ear canal damage and required medical attention. His ears are still ringing.
But he stayed on duty despite nagging pain. “He has a constant ear and headache,” his mom said.
She said he experienced a “rough few weeks” lately. His Army buddy and roommate was killed by a roadside, battery-detonated bomb in September. They had served together since boot camp.
“He helped carry his roommate’s body to a helicopter,” his wife said. “That tore him up.”
His recruiter stops at 3-D Variety to inquire how he’s doing. The recruiter told him it would be a dangerous job. “He didn’t sugar coat it,” Tammy Turgeon said about the recruiter’s pitch to sign her son.
Turgeon regularly receives care packages from home. He asked for circus peanuts and “nana’s cookies.” Virginia and Rowland Turgeon of Buxton are his grandparents. His grandmother sends his favorite cookies – homemade chocolate chip.
He’s eating OK in Iraq, his wife reports. Despite the desert heat that soared to 145 degrees in August, he’s gained 30 pounds.
The soldier and his wife teamed up to surprise his parents earlier this year when he was home on leave. Unannounced, she took her husband into 3-D Variety. “He surprised me. He almost gave me a heart attack,” his mom said.
“We couldn’t keep him full, he was always hungry,” she said about when he was home on leave.
His family is keeping a photo album for him. He missed a lot, including the wedding of his brother, James Turgeon, in June. He was supposed to his brother’s best man, but instead, he heard the vows over a cell call.
His Iraq tour will be completed in November, although the family knows there’s a chance it could be extended. The Army has been keeping Turgeon focused and busy. “He’s dog tired,” his wife said.
The couple hopes to be together in Buxton soon after Christmas, but she doesn’t foresee settling down there. Turgeon has passed a test for a training program to be a police officer in New York City. Since then, though, he has re-enlisted, and his wife hopes for a tour in Germany.
Both the soldier’s mother and wife have seen the difference the Army has made in Turgeon’s life.
“I think it’s given him a direction – a future,” Tammy Turgeon said. “We’re proud of him for what he’s doing.”
His wife said he knows and appreciates what he has.
“He cherishes me more,” she said.
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