A sailor's return, and a family's long-sought reunion

By Corinne Reilly

Sallyvidia Isiaho stood quietly Tuesday morning inside a dark, narrow hallway below the deck of the Bataan, the amphibious assault ship where he'd spent the past seven months. As he waited his turn to walk down the stairs to the Norfolk Naval Station pier, he studied the $15 bouquet he'd ordered on board the week before, anxiously rubbing one of its bright red petals between two fingers.

Somewhere out there, the wife he'd left behind and the little boy he barely knew were waiting.

"I don't think he'll recognize me," he said softly. "Maybe he'll know my voice from the phone."

Isiaho, a machinist's mate, is among roughly 1,100 sailors who returned Tuesday with the Norfolk-based Bataan, which deployed to the Middle East in May. But for Isiaho, the arrival was a lot more than another homecoming: It marked the first time he'd held his 3-year-old son in nearly 10 months and the end of a years-long effort to reunite his family in the United States.

Isiaho, 28, came to America from Kenya in 2005 after winning a green-card lottery. He joined the Navy in 2007 on the promise that the military would help bring his new wife and infant son from Africa.

But turning that pledge into reality took far longer than Isiaho had hoped.

More than two years passed and his wife, Teresia Wanja, remained in Kenya. By then, violence had erupted across the country in the wake of national elections that many alleged were rigged. Alone and in fear for her life, Teresia packed up the baby and fled her hometown for the capital, Nairobi.

With his wife still in Africa, Isiaho became a U.S. citizen in 2008. Finally, early this year, word came that Teresia had been granted a six-month visa to travel to America.

But with it came crushing news: No papers had come for the baby, Bill. He would have to stay behind because Isiaho had originally applied as a green-card holder for their son to immigrate. Now that he was a citizen, Isiaho was told, he'd have to start the process all over for Bill.

"I didn't understand it. It made no sense," Teresia, 27, said recently. "Any woman who has given birth knows how painful it is to leave her child. But I needed to see my husband. It had been so long, and he was about to deploy."

Teresia left Bill with her mother and boarded a plane for America. She arrived in Norfolk this spring, less than three weeks before Isiaho left on the Bataan.

"It was so hard to leave her by herself," said Isiaho, who say s he fell instantly in love when he met Teresia at a college rugby game in Kenya in 2005. "Everything in America was brand new to her. She didn't even have our son."

The day the Bataan set to sea, The Virginian-Pilot photographed Teresia crying in her husband's arms as they said goodbye on the naval station pier. The next day the newspaper published a story about the couple's plight.

Teresia recalls the first week after her husband's departure as among the loneliest in her life. She'd never driven, never used a credit card, never been without Bill since he was born.

"I was lost," she said. "I didn't know how to do anything. When the food ran out at home, I didn't know how to get more."

But things improved quickly. The Navy offered its support. Civilians who'd read about the family in the paper called to ask what Teresia needed. The most important of those calls came from a case worker with U.S. Sen. Jim Webb's office. She said she wanted to help bring Bill to America.

After months of wrangling, the caseworker finally learned in June that he'd been cleared to immigrate. Teresia cried in happiness for an entire day.

Bill arrived in the United States on Oct. 24 with his grandmother, who was granted a one-year visa to accompany him. When Bill saw Teresia at the airport, she recalled, he smiled and called out for her in Swahili.

"He knew me right away," Teresia said. "I was so relieved."

Since then, Bill and his mother have spent their days at their new home, a cozy, brick one-story just outside the gates of Norfolk Naval Station. They go to the playground and to church and to his favorite restaurant, McDonald's.

"He knows he's in America. He loves this country," Teresia said. "When we call my father back in Kenya, he tells him that America is beautiful. He tells him, 'We have a car!' "

But one thing - one big thing - was missing: Isiaho. Before Tuesday, Bill knew his father only through photographs and phone calls.

As the Bataan pulled into port, though, none of that seemed to matter.

Isiaho spotted Teresia first. She'd curled her hair and wore a sharp brown suit. He cried when they kissed, then knelt to the ground in his dress uniform to meet Bill's eyes.

"Do you know who this is?" Teresia asked. Bill thought for a moment.

"Daddy," he said.

Isiaho whispered something in Swahili as he hugged his son for the first time in the United States. Bill giggled. They held hands all the way to the car.

Back at home, Isiaho described Tuesday as the true beginning of his life as a father and husband.

"This is the first time my family will live all together in one house," he said. "I've spent less than three weeks with my son since he was born. I don't know what to say except that I think this will be the happiest time for all of us."

The Bataan's commanding officer, Capt. Sam Howard, said it was the outcome all of Isiaho's superiors had hoped for. "The whole command team was involved in this," Howard said. "It was important to all of us. It's the ending this family deserves."

Teresia and Bill are both permanent U.S. residents now, and both are on track to become citizens. Bill's English is slowly improving. He tells his parents he wants to be a pilot. Teresia has earned a credential to work as a certified nursing assistant. She plans to continue her studies to become a registered nurse.

She said she hopes her husband, who recently was promoted to petty officer 3rd class, will spend the rest of his career as a sailor.

"Everything we have now - it's because of America and the Navy," she said. "We owe them our lives."

Corinne Reilly, (757) 446-2949, corinne.reilly@pilotonline.com.