From the S&S archives:
At 'wedding' in Somalia, the bride needed some grooming

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The bride had a mustache.

A good shave wouldn't have hurt either the bridesmaid or the maid of honor.

The groom? He was clean-shaven. And laughing like crazy.

This was June 18 in Somalia, in the Air Force compound at the Mogadishu airport.

Staff Sgt. John Urban of the 1610th Airlift Support Group (Provisional) was to have been married the day before in Dover, Del.

But he was here, and Tammy Kirsop was there.

"Everybody's been keeping me up, my spirits, " said Urban, who, like most members of the 1610th, is an Air Force reservist.

The biggest boost to his sagging morale came on this day when he was surprised at a commander's call by the most outrageous "wedding" ceremony imaginable.

"There has been a horrible injustice done," said Lt. Col. R.H. "Dick' Robison, the on-site commander of the Air Force mission at this airfield, as he began the meeting.

As he continued in this vein, the unsuspecting Urban suddenly caught on and dropped his head on the table in front of him in surprise and embarrassment.

Out came a "preacher" draped in a sheet to look like some witch doctor from a bad Tarzan movie.

Out came the "best man," a woman reservist. Out came the "maid of honor," the "bridesmaid" and the "bride," all adorned with sheets or beach towels or whatever was available, and wearing mops as wigs.

And Urban, still laughing, played along.

As he and the "bride" exchanged rings — actually paper rings slipped from cigars — the preacher noted, "These rings are symbols that a good marriage is like a good cigar."

The "bride" cried. The happy couple danced.

"I want you both in my office for a counseling session," Robison announced.

"You've got the tent for 15 minutes," one voice offered. "It won't take that long," another added.

And Urban? "I was in shock. I couldn't believe it," he said. "Once I saw the bride — my God."

The "bride" was Master Sgt. Aaron Maness, another reservist with the 1610th.

"You've got to do things for camp morale," he said, and then added, "It didn't do much for camp morals."

The whole affair was planned by Urban's new colleagues.

Because they came from a variety of places, many had only met in Mogadishu.

But his new friends noticed that Urban — deployed only three days before his wedding day, the real one — had been a bit quiet.

When they learned the reason, the surprise was plotted.

Nobody, knew about (his canceled wedding) until the day before," explained Capt. Dalene Perdue, who said it came up during casual conversation. "The next day at breakfast somebody told us and we said, 'Oh, we ought to have a wedding.'"

But even this wedding was delayed. It was to have been on the day of the planned wedding, but events interfered. U.N. troops were punishing warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid for attacks on Pakistani peacekeeping forces June 5, and several members of the 1610th were sent to U.N. hospitals.

Master Sgt. Barbara Hansen, a medical technician, was sent to a hospital established by the Swedes before the attack to tend the anticipated wounded.

"Everybody thought we were safe there, but we weren't," she said.

While hospital staff members were working on patients, a bullet zipped through the hospital, said Hansen, who was in a combat zone for the first time.

Most of the patients were in serious condition, she said, suffering from bullet and shrapnel wounds, One patient died at the hospital.

"This was the first time for most of us in a war," she said. "You don't think about it. You just jump in and do your job."

1st Lt. Marry Soper was also at the hospital that day, but she had been at the Italian hospital when the Pakistanis had been ambushed.

"That was like my initiation. It was a crash course," she said.

But that didn't prepare her for coming under fire while at the Swedish hospital.

"It was, like, this is real world," she said.

So the "wedding" took some of the edge off. It provided some laughs and levity to ease a situation that had become tense in recent days.

If it buoyed the spirits of Urban, it did the same for everyone.

"That was good. That was really good," Soper said. "It was simply fun."