Stefan and Jamile Shirley of Ames have been married since Dec. 23, 2005. However, they have only lived together for approximately two months.

Thursday was their 20-month anniversary, and thanks to Stefan’s exceedingly long tour of duty in Iraq, they’ve spent more time writing to each other than they have actually talking.

“Before he got home, we’d spent 34 days together,” Jamile said.

The couple met at Camp Dodge, where Jamile was working as a contractor in graphic design.

Stefan, now a junior in mathematics at Iowa State, worked in the building across the street from her offices.

“We had an audio recording studio that we didn’t have room for, so we moved it into the other building,” Jamile said.

“I had to go across the street to ask the sound engineer a question and Stefan was sitting right there in his office.”

Jamile said the two spent the summer with each other until Stefan left on Sept. 23, 2005.

“He came home for Christmas and we got married during his 12-day leave,” Jamile said. “We didn’t get to see each other again until March of 2006, right before he left.”

Stefan is an executive officer in the National Guard. He’d spent 12 months on active duty and was home for a 15-day visit when he found out his tour of duty had been extended for an extra 125 days. He is now on active duty until Sept. 4; then, he’ll revert back to regular reserve duty.

Jamile said Stefan could still technically be activated for natural disasters or flood relief, but the National Guard has said there will be five to six years between actual deployments. She also said a lot of people question why the National Guard, which is composed mainly of citizens with other full-time jobs, was deployed for so long when there are active duty military personnel who have chosen the military as a career and are working jobs on bases.

Stefan said active military personnel are trained to react to situations on a global level and have to be ready to deploy anywhere around the world, whereas the National Guard is basically home defense.

Jamile said there were so many aspects of their relationship that were affected by distance, so they had to focus on communication.

“It’s all you have; there’s of course no physical contact, there’s nothing really that you can do for each other except send letters, send packages and the occasional phone call. That’s what really connects you,” Jamile said.

In fact, she said she feels they know each other better than couples that get to see each other every day.

“All we had was communication and talking and asking about day-to-day life, and in addition to learning about each other, I think that it really brings you together,” Jamile said.

Conversely, she said they actually communicate less now.

“You can almost look at each other and know what they’re thinking. Or you read someone’s facial expression. Now you don’t have to communicate as much in words or vocally because you can see each other’s reactions,” she said.

The Shirleys now live in west Ames, and they’re planning to stick around for a while. Jamile said the area has a lot of opportunities and they really enjoy its central location. Stefan is a math major at Iowa State and plans to go on to teach at the high school level while pursuing higher education and eventually teaching college students.

They just got back from a weeklong kayaking trip on the Gunflint Trail in Minnesota. They spent the week bouncing from campsite to campsite and taking in the scenery.

“We love the outdoors – camping, hiking, kayaking. This seems like we’ve been pushing time in the last few years to get through it. Every day that goes by is like, ‘Yes, another day has gone and at the beginning of this, I was just staring at a year-and-a-half to get rid of,'” Jamile said. “Now, we can live life slowly and enjoy every moment.”

When he was in Balad, Iraq, Stefan had to get used to live fire and four or five rockets a day coming in. Now, his biggest worry is being organized enough for classes.

Stefan is taking 18 credits this semester, but he and Jamile feel that after his experience in Iraq, he should be able to handle the load. He said being a nontraditional student is funny because he’s definitely in a different world now.

“There’s this girl in my business communication class and she’s from my hometown and I didn’t know who she was,” he said. “She’s like 15 years younger than me.”