I sent a letter to a deployed soldier to thank him for his service. We are now celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary.

• In my early 20s, I saw a story about sending a letter to deployed soldiers.
• I hadn't made many friends after college, so I wrote one and sent it with cookies.
• In 1995, I married one of the soldiers with whom I had become a pen pal.

In 1990, I was in my early 20s, living in my first apartment and in my first post-college job.

Still, I wasn't like other women my age. I had been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and was facing hip replacement surgery. Dating and love weren't on my radar.

One evening, I saw a media story encouraging Americans to send letters to "Any Soldier" to support deployed troops. I wrote a patriotic letter, thanking whoever received it for their service, and put it in a shoebox with homemade cookies. Duty done.

I wasn't expecting to meet my husband like that.

A crew wrote back

A few weeks later, I received a letter, not from a US Marine Corps tank crew thanking me for the package and telling me a little about themselves. One of them mentioned that "Sgt. Ski" (the quiet one) read my letter on Good Morning America.

As the holidays approached, I sent Christmas cards to each of the four-person crew. I began receiving letters from each of them, including Sgt. Bill Mioduszewski. The crew and I exchanged group letters and audiotapes. They even painted my name on the side of their tank.

While quiet in real life, Bill was a marathon letter writer, sharing about his favorite bands, hometown, family, the cookies his grandma sent, and why he joined the Marines. He asked me about my life and the concerts he assumed I was attending back home.

When we met, he didn't feel like a stranger

Though Bill and I were strangers, we developed an easy, unguarded bond through our correspondence. Still, I didn't share my health issue with him; to be honest, I didn't think we'd ever meet. He asked for my phone number, but I didn't think he'd ever call.

But in April 1991, when he turned to the US, he did. We continued to write over the next two years and talk on the phone occasionally. I was chatty and flirty, and he was quiet and amused.

As time passed, Bill talked more frequently about meeting. I made excuses. I was afraid that if we met, he would see I didn't look like I did in that flattering picture I had sent the crew in 1990; I had gained 50 lbs. from medications for my health condition.

He pushed me to set a date to meet in 1992. I told him I was having surgery and needed to take time off for that. He sent me flowers and a sweet get-well card. I had put him off again.

In 1993, Bill was transferred from the West Coast to the East, now only a nine-hour drive away. I had no more excuses. I wrote to him and told him why I was afraid to meet.

When I didn't hear back immediately, I assumed the worst. Two weeks later, I got his reply: "I don't care if I come there, you come here, or we meet halfway — we are going to meet."

So we set a date, Labor Day weekend in 1993. As soon as we saw each other, he went for a long embrace. It didn't feel like we were strangers then.

We've been married for 29 years

That night, we went out with a friend and her husband. We went back to their house to watch a late-night TV show, and Bill and I laughed at the same stupid jokes. I took him to a few Florida touristy spots and tried to impress him with my culinary skills.

Three days after we met, he shyly kissed me. We were falling in love, not in the usual way, but as friends who knew each other pretty well before we "technically" met. Two months later, he quietly told me he loved me, and I told him I loved him, too. In November 1995, we got married.

Since then, we have lived all over and gone through life's lows and highs, including illness, deployments, infertility and miscarriages, buying our first home, welcoming our only child, and career changes, including his retirement from the Marines.

In September 2001, when I was seven months pregnant with our son, Bill went to California for desert training. He unexpectedly ran into his former lieutenant, the one who made him read my "Any Soldier" letter on TV.

Bill said, "Remember our pen pal, Vikki? I married her and she's having our son." The then-USMC major responded with a look of surprise followed by an "Ooh ra! Hope he's born on the Marine Corps birthday." I missed the 226^th by a couple of days.

This year, Sgt. Ski and I will celebrate our 29th anniversary. What began as a dutiful letter and melted cookies in a shoebox addressed to "Any Soldier" landed exactly where they were meant to, if you believe in fate — and we do.