Look! Our Francie is famous!

Norton woman send husband serving in Iraq letters on back of notes he sent from Vietnam.
Same message, different wartime.

Francie Nutter of Norton looks over letters she received from her husband-to-be when he served in Vietnam in the late '60s.

Francie Nutter has been in this position before, writing letters to a serviceman overseas.

It was in the late '60s when 19-year-old Francie Nolan began corresponding with the young man who had taken her to the Buchtel High School senior prom, Marine Paul Nutter.

Then, the letters went to Vietnam.

At first, the return letters that now fill a large box in Francie Nutter's home were addressed: ``Dear Fran.''

As the months and the war dragged on, the flames of love could be seen. Those later letters started: ``Dearest Darling.''

Paul Nutter came home from Vietnam in early 1969. A few months later, on April 15, he and Francie Nolan were married.

Today, they live in Norton. They have raised two children and have two grandchildren.

And once again, Francie Nutter is writing love letters to the man she loves. This time, the letters are going to Iraq.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Paul Nutter is a Navy Reserve hospital corpsman. He headed to Iraq with a battalion of Marine reservists that included his unit out of Brook Park and 140 Marines from the Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment out of Akron. The Marine Reserve infantry unit is the last such one to be mobilized to active duty since 9/11.

And Nutter, 56, is the oldest person serving in the battalion of about 1,200.

The letters he now receives are being written on the back of the love letters he sent from Vietnam so many years ago.

On one recent day, Francie Nutter, a 15-year breast cancer survivor, pulled a letter from the box and read the words her husband wrote on Aug. 29, 1968, from Vietnam.

``You know I love you so much, I wish I could get on top of the world and scream it out.

``All the Gold on earth couldn't match my love for you.''

`Ready to go' after 9/11

Paul Nutter spent eight years in the Marines in both active duty and the Reserve after writing those words to his future wife.

He worked as a B.F. Goodrich firefighter in Akron and as a Norton firefighter and paramedic. He joined the Navy Reserve in 1990 as a corpsman -- a medic.

Both Nutter and his wife work for Stark Summit Ambulance.

When terrorists attacked America in 2001, Paul Nutter ``was ready to go,'' said Francie, now 56.

When the call came late last year to the Marines and corpsmen attached to the Marine Reserve unit, Corpsman Nutter jumped at the chance. And he wasn't about to let quadruple-bypass heart surgery five years ago stop him.

``It's been exciting,'' he said in a phone interview this week from his base at Haditha Dam, about 250 miles southwest of Baghdad.

But there is a downside, too.

``We've been busy with casualties,'' he said. ``It just eats at me when I see it.''

Nutter has been on the scene when three Marines have died, he said.

He said when he looks at the young Marines he works with and those he treats for injuries, he sees himself as a young man. ``I was young and dumb'' in Vietnam, he said. ``I took a lot of chances then. Now, I hardly take any chances.''

The Marines he serves with, he said, ``are well-prepared.''

Still, the place where he is stationed is a tough spot. The residents hated Saddam Hussein, he said, but ``they dislike us immensely.''

Since leaving for this assignment, Nutter said, he has lost more than 50 pounds and feels healthy. He plans to retire from the Navy when he returns home. ``I promised my wife -- no more wars,'' he said.

Countdown of days

This time, the first letter home went to his 3 ½-year-old granddaughter.

Then the letters began to arrive for Francie Nutter.

As he did when he was in Vietnam, Paul Nutter keeps a running countdown on each of his letters of the number of days until his return to Ohio. She does the same.

They figure he has more than 200 days to go.

And so, Francie Nutter, looks through her box for letters.

``Who knows. I hope someday we will get married and just in case we do, here is something to get us started.''

A $20 bill fell out of the old letter a young Marine sent so many years ago.

She put the $20 bill back in the letter and put the letter back in the box. Perhaps it will be stationery for another day.

Paul Nutter recently received his first letter from his wife on Vietnam stationery.

``It brought back memories of a long war and that my love for her has grown stronger,'' he said in an e-mail from Iraq. And the letter made him realize ``that Nam was as dangerous as this Iraq war and that mail from home is still a morale booster.''

This week, Francie Nutter dropped another letter to her husband in the mail -- one written on the back of a letter from the summer of 1968.

``Dearest Darling,'' she began her 2005 letter to Paul.

``Wow, this is some romantic letter you wrote August 29, 1968. Every one I pull from the box is better than the one before.... Those were the days and will be again.''

Reading the old letters and thinking about the years that have passed fills her with emotion.

``Isn't that something?'' she said, holding one of the old letters as the sun shone into her kitchen in Norton.

``I will tell you, I think I am falling in love again from reading these letters.''

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Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com