65 Below by Basil Sands

originally from Oklahoma. However, when they got out of the Army, the couple decided to stay where they were. He got a job as a lineman with Tanana Valley Electrical Cooperative. They settled into a new home in the Graehl neighborhood on the east side of Fairbanks.
    Lonnie’s childhood in Alaska was peaceful and comfortable. Her parents had decided that she should not lose the knowledge of her Korean heritage, so they joined a small Korean Presbyterian church located near their home and made sure she was tutored in her native language and culture. By the time she was an adult, she had retained natively fluent Korean and unaccented English and moved easily both in Korean and American social circles.
    She met Marcus during a cross-country track meet at Lathrop High School in 1984. Lonnie was a contender for the All Alaska title in the girls’ 5K event. Marcus was the current state champion in the boys’ 10K. He had clean, golden-brown skin topped by a thick layer of wavy black hair closely cropped on the sides and combed back over his head. His features, a gentle mixture of black and Athabaskan native, gave him an appearance that was at once strong and tender. Throughout the race that first day, she could not take her eyes off him. He noticed her constant glances and reciprocated in like manner.
    They dated all through the rest of high school until he joined the Marines after graduation in 1986. While in college at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she majored in mathematics, Lonnie waited for him to finish his six-year commitment and come home. She envisioned them getting married and settling down to a normal Alaskan life of enjoying the great outdoors, having children, and taking an occasional trip to some remote tropical island in mid-winter.
    Marcus constantly wrote romantic letters and postcards to her from wherever he was stationed. He often penned beautiful poems for her. Those were her favorite part of his writings. He had the ability to explain his thoughts in ways more real than she understood her own feelings. Every time he wrote to her, she felt as if she was looking into his soul. She wished she had the same ability. Her strength lay not in poetry, though, but in the analytical thinking of math and hard sciences.
    Several times, Marcus sent her money to fly down to see him wherever he was stationed, and once even brought her to Europe, to take part in Linus and Cara’s wedding in Norway. It was there that he asked her to marry him. Lonnie had thought about it during the previous years. She knew that eventually he would ask. She had worked over her response many times. Her answer came with a stipulation. It sounded logical to her. His love for her would be proven by his willingness to submit to this one simple request.
    Lonnie knew Marcus would be a good husband, but the idea of sharing him with a job that constantly called him to distant places and faraway lands did not fit her vision of a happy couple. That their marriage could suddenly end with a chaplain knocking on the door to inform the young wife of the sad news of her husband’s heroic death was more than she thought she could handle. If he would leave the Marines, she would accept. From the moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
    He told her he understood, but hoped she would change her mind. He could not leave the Corps. It had become his identity. He was a “poster Marine,” the model of a compassionate warrior recruiters used to draw new men into their brotherhood. Lonnie continued to write to him and he wrote back. As time went on, the romantic allusions in his letters gradually disappeared.
    Lonnie graduated from UAF and became a math teacher at the school where she and Marcus had met. As she taught, she became increasingly distressed by the problem of drugs and crime that was growing among the teenagers of the region. When a tragic accident involving drugs took the life of one of her favorite students, Lonnie’s heart