By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

It was the phone call that never came.

U.S. Army medic and former Carl Junction resident Sgt. Paul F. Brooks had called his wife, Nicole, on May 20 to tell her he had gotten his first mission on his second tour to Iraq. It was going to be dangerous.

“I told him that whenever he got home, to call me, and he kept saying that it’s going to be the middle of the night and that I didn’t really want him to call me then,” said Nicole Brooks, 29, in a telephone interview Thursday. “Of course, he never called.”

Paul, 34, died in that mission on May 21. His Army unit was patrolling near an outdoor market in Baghdad’s southern Dora district when a bomb exploded, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Two of his fellow soldiers — Maj. Jason E. George, 38, of Tehachapi, Calif., and 1st Lt. Leevi K. Barnard, 28, of Mount Airy, N.C. — also died in the explosion.

“I woke up knowing — just sick to my stomach,” Nicole said of realizing her husband didn’t call.

The next day, as she unloaded her groceries, two men in military dress uniforms stepped out of their car.

“Paul was always sending his buddies over to talk with me and check on me, but I focused on their faces and didn’t know them,” Nicole said. “Then I saw they were wearing their dress greens and everyday soldiers don’t. I thought, ‘No, no, maybe it’s something else.’ I didn’t want to think that.

“But as soon as they asked me to sit down, I lost it,” she said.

Her husband was laid to rest in Springfield on Saturday.

It has been difficult for Nicole and the couple’s children. Nicole said her oldest son, Cody, 10, Paul’s stepson, was hysterical when he heard the news. Paul and Nicole’s oldest son, Logan, 7, also took the news hard.

“He and his dad were close,” Nicole said. “The little ones don’t really understand what’s going on.”

Paul and Nicole also have Aiden, 6, Samara, 4, and Denver, 2, together. Paul also has two other children, Haley, 14, and Seth, 9.

Denver needed lifesaving surgery as a newborn to fix a hole in his heart. The Missouri Veterans Commission formed “Operation Baby’s Heart” to help pay for costs associated with the surgery.