Former police officer kidnapped,missing in IRAQ www.privateofficer.com

BUFFALO, MINN. March 24 2008 - Every time her phone rings, Keri Johnson-Reuben's heart races. Every time she answers, she wonders if she'll finally get the news that she's waiting to hear -- that her husband, kidnapped in Iraq 16 months ago, is alive and well and coming home.
"Every time the phone rings and I see it's the State Department or the FBI, my heart drops," Johnson-Reuben said. "It just drops."
Paul Johnson-Reuben, a Marine Corps veteran and former St. Louis Park police officer, was one of five contractors believed captured by insurgents when a convoy they were escorting was hijacked at a fake checkpoint in southern Iraq in November 2006.
Earlier this month, his family, and those of the other kidnap victims, were told that severed fingers of their loved ones -- including a finger belonging to Paul -- had been delivered to U.S. officials in Baghdad.
Distressing as the news was, it's renewed Keri Johnson-Reuben's hope that her husband, who was 39 when kidnapped while working as a security contractor for Crescent Security Group, is still alive.
"Paul has a lot of faith," Johnson-Reuben, 34, said. "And being a Marine, he has coping skills. I don't think he's OK physically or mentally, but I think his faith is keeping him alive because he is very strong.
"He's very strong emotionally and he knows he has people to live for."
Finally speaks out
Although other members of Paul Johnson-Reuben's family, including his parents and twin brother, Patrick, have talked publicly about the kidnapping, his wife has said little.
"I just felt everybody wanted a story," she said. "To me, this isn't a case, it's my life."
She also said government officials encouraged her not to talk for fear it might jeopardize search efforts.
But she said she has decided to speak out now in part because she's emotionally and financially drained. And she believes the U.S. government hasn't done enough to find her husband and the others.
"I'm finally fed up," Keri Johnson-Reuben said. "I don't feel like they are doing everything they can."
FBI Special Agent Paul McCabe said that the FBI, State Department and military are committed to finding the contractors and rescuing them.
"The investigation continues and remains a high priority," he said. "We have agents on the ground over there, and everyone is doing their best. But it's a war zone. It's not that easy."
She begged him to stay
Keri Johnson-Reuben said she and her husband, who changed his last name to Johnson-Reuben after their wedding, had been married for only five days when he left home in August 2004 and headed to Iraq to work as a private security contractor.
He'd lost his job as a police officer following a drunken-driving arrest, and knew that the security job would be dangerous. He was gone months at a time, returning home for two weeks to two months in between.
Whenever he came home, "I begged him not to go back," she said. "I begged him nonstop."
She said the couple talked often about what would happen if he was killed or injured. But they never considered what unfolded on Nov. 16, 2006, when she got a phone call from a close friend, Cara Mearns-Thompson, who broke the news of the kidnapping.
"I told her, 'I'm coming over,' " Mearns-Thompson said. "Usually, I would ask. But that night, I said, 'Keri, I'm on my way.' "
Johnson-Reuben immediately turned on the TV and heard the grim news. Her legs got weak. She fell to the floor and "just cried and cried and cried," she said.
She stayed up all night, talking on the phone with friends and government officials trying to learn more.
Months later, she's an emotional wreck. She said she hasn't slept in the couple's bed since the kidnapping and spends each night clinging to the blue T-shirt Paul wore just before returning to Iraq.
"I still don't sleep or eat [much], because when I eat, I wonder if he's being fed," she said. "When I take a shower, I wonder if he's taking a shower or is clean. I wonder if he's in the dark or in a bed or if he's safe."
She's lost weight, and is haunted by a phone conversation with Paul four days before the kidnapping.
She said he told her that a man dressed as a police officer at a checkpoint had threatened to kill him. What troubled him most, he told her, was the look in the man's eyes. "He said it was terrifying," she said. "And Paul doesn't scare easily."
Financial woes mounting
The stress has also taken a financial toll. In July 2006, she quit her job with Hennepin County juvenile probation, leaving her and her teenage son dependent on her husband's income.
Since Paul disappeared, she's worked nearly a dozen shifts at a women's shelter and also a few days helping a disabled woman. But she said she couldn't stick with either.
"Emotionally, she's paralyzed," said her friend, Mearns-Thompson, a social worker and former grief counselor.
Early on, Crescent, the security firm, paid the families of those kidnapped about a half-month's salary. But Crescent has gone out of business.
Last year, Johnson-Reuben said, the state reparations board, which offers benefits to Minnesota residents who are victims of crimes overseas, helped with aid. But a board official said those resources are capped; Johnson-Reuben said the money she received has already been depleted.
A fund has been established at TCF Bank in Buffalo to help her and her son.
"We're having serious difficulties," she said.
Meanwhile, she continues to talk frequently with government officials in hopes of finding out more about her husband's fate.
She said her hopes soared when a videotape of the kidnap victims was shown in January 2007. And she gets excited whenever government officials tell her they have new leads.
In recent days, she's waited to hear more from the FBI about Paul's finger. She wants to know which finger was severed, when it was cut and whether the captors left a note.
"I always say, 'I can't go one more day,' " she said, tearing up. "Every single day is hard."

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