by Stephanie Ogar

“I tried staying strong when saying goodbye. We didn’t know how long he was going to be gone at the time,” junior Samantha Keville says.

In second grade, Samantha Keville had to say her temporary goodbyes to her father when he left for Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Every day I would worry that he wouldn’t come home. That was a lot of stress for a second grader,” Samantha says.

Luckily, Samantha and her mother were able to keep in touch with her father while he was gone.

“We would email back and forth a lot. He used to write me a ton of letters and we would sometimes talk on the phone. We were on Good Morning America and we got to talk to him and see him on a TV. He could hear us but he couldn’t see us. It was really emotional, since I was so young,” Samantha says.

To help her mother stay happy, Samantha worked hard and was very successful in school.

“I actually got straight A’s when he was gone because I worked really hard to make my mom happy. She was stressed enough, and I didn’t want to make it worse for her.”

Even though it was very stressful with lots of thoughts going through Samantha’s head, her parents helped make her have the best time she could.

“Holidays kind of sucked but my mom made them as fun and memorable as she could. For St. Patrick’s Day, she made me a whole green dinner so that was pretty cool. Then for Christmas my dad sent me an American girl doll. He gave me Kailey because I had the Samantha doll already and Kailey is my middle name. I had them both which made me feel so cool,” Samantha says.

After a long fourteen months, Samantha finally got to go pick up her father.

“Picking him up was pretty fun. My mom and I and another family went in a limo to go get our fathers. I remember being so antsy the whole time because he was right there, and I had to sit through a ceremony before I got to see him. When they let him go I ran into his arms. It was like a cheesy movie, but it was honestly the best feeling in the world because I’m daddy’s little girl,” Samantha says.

Samantha thinks that the experience was good for her and helped her in the future.

“I think it was a good experience. To me, it is what makes me so mature today. I was dealing with adult situations at seven years old,” Samantha says.