HOME SWEET HOME Far From a War Zone, It’s Postal Service With a Smile IMPROVEMENTS By Leonard Shapiro
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he next time you walk up to the counter at the Middleburg post office and Antwan Montford is standing on the other side of the plexiglass, make certain you thank him for his stellar service.
Whether you are planning to remodel your kitchen, transform your master bath, finish a basement or build an addition, you need more than a contractor. You need a partner you can trust with the possession that says the most about what you value and the way you live.
No, not for picking out the perfect stamp. Not for making sure your package is properly sealed and addressed. And certainly not for heading to the back room to retrieve your mail because you left that post office box key back home on the kitchen table. Not that this genial 12-year military veteran is looking for any sort of verbal pat on the back. Photo by Leonard Shapiro But thank Montford anyway Antwan Montford offers postal service with for his service in the U.S. Army, a smile. including 15 months deployed in Iraq, then later, another nine months in Afghanistan. He had two very close calls in Iraq. Sitting in a humvee gunner turret, a suicide bomber detonated explosives that killed two of his friends. He suffered a back injury that day, saved mainly by a sturdy safety harness. Months later, he sustained a neck injury when his vehicle was nearly blown in half by an improvised explosive device (IED) on the side of the road. “I was lucky” not being injured or wounded in Afghanistan, he said. “But every day out there, you know that anything could happen.” Montford was a combat engineer in a unit assigned to find IEDs before they wreaked havoc on men and machines. He saw plenty of that up close and personal, and after his second deployment he also dealt with PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder).
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“Everything seemed to trigger it for me,” he said. “I had a short fuse, I couldn’t sleep, I was always worried that something was going to happen. I finally had a therapist who really helped me. She said, ‘you have to exercise your mind.’ I started reading, watching documentaries. It really made a difference. And I love to read.” Still, there was not much he could do about his physical ailments. He had hoped to become a drill sergeant, but couldn’t pass the physical. Finally, an Army physician “told me that if I ever wanted to hold my son, the best thing for me to do was retire. I left at 40 and it really crushed me. I loved what I was doing.” A Miami native, Montford, now 44, has gone back to community college and is studying psychology. Eventually he’d like to become a counselor and make the same sort of impact his Army therapist had on him. His wife, Analyn, also a military veteran he met while they were stationed at Fort Benning, works for the State Department and is studying for a Masters. They live in South Riding and have a six-year-old son, Amare, now painlessly held frequently by his doting dad. Montford had no interest in applying to replace retired Middleburg postmaster Ken Quinn. A desk or supervisory role is just not for him, he said. “I like what I’m doing,” he added. “And I didn’t want a job where I had the responsibility of leading. I just wanted to be able to go home after work and be with my family.” As for Middleburg, “I love the people,” he said. “From day one, I was welcomed with open arms. The town has a home feel to me. People are always stopping to talk. They wave to me from their car.” And it never hurts to thank him for his service either, stamps not included.
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Go Green Middleburg | Fall 2021
