Sunday, January 11, 2004

His girlfriend never got to tell him 'yes'

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

Like every young woman, Bianca Taenzer dreamed about the way her boyfriend might propose to her.

It would be memorable.

It would be romantic.

And at her feet, on bended knee.

So when Army Sgt. Timothy Hayslett sent her an instant message asking if she would marry him, she told him that was not a question she would answer on the Internet.

In a few weeks, she thought to herself, Tim would return to his base near her home in Germany. Then she would answer him.

She never got that chance.

On Nov. 15, exactly one month before he was scheduled to return from a tour of duty in Iraq, Hayslett of Lower Mifflin Twp., Cumberland County, was killed in action. A bomb in the road exploded as the Humvee he was riding in passed by. He was 26.

Bianca Taenzer never got to say "yes" to the man of her dreams.

"We had a really good relationship. He was a really good person," Taenzer said by phone from her home in Rosbach, Germany. "We were really good together."

That was obvious almost from the start. Taenzer, 25, and Hayslett met at her sister's wedding to another U.S. soldier. Two days later, they went on their first date. Hayslett spoke almost no German. Taenzer's English was halting.

It hardly mattered. They walked and talked for five hours that night.

"I was surprised that I could speak English for about five hours without a dictionary, but Tim said I was doing pretty good," said Taenzer, who had taken several years of English but had done much better in French class.

In some ways, their timing could not have been better. Hayslett had just started a three-week leave. Taenzer was on school break.

"We spent every day together," Taenzer recalled. "It was kind of weird. From the beginning, it was like I knew him a long time."

In other ways, their timing could not have been worse. Hayslett was married, though he had been separated several months before meeting Taenzer. His divorce was pending when he died.

For Taenzer, college was a priority. An architecture student at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, Taenzer had little time for romance.

"I never wanted an American soldier, but love goes a weird way sometimes. When love comes, you can't change it," Taenzer said. "We both had the same feeling about each other, to be together and happy the rest of our lives."

Hayslett's older brother, Phillip, 28, could tell Timothy thought Taenzer was special the first time he told him about her.

"Tim really liked her," Phillip Hayslett said. "He was definitely smitten."

Timothy Hayslett left Big Spring High School a few credits shy of graduation in 1996. He picked up his GED later, before enlisting in the Army.

"School wasn't for him," said his mother, Mary. "He was more interested in girls, hanging out and partying."

Mom might have been just as surprised as Taenzer when her younger son started taking a German class. He told Taenzer he wanted to better communicate with her and her family. They made a pact: She helped him with his German. He helped her with her English class.

The high school dropout didn't just pass the course.

"He learned pretty fast. He finished with an A," Taenzer said. "He would send me e-mails in German sometimes. I thought he was pretty cute when he did that."

Their months together were interrupted in May when his unit was sent to Iraq. The inseparable pair found it difficult being limited to one phone call a week. Later, Hayslett managed to get Internet access, which allowed them to talk almost daily on instant messenger.

Their conversations weren't just about how much they loved and missed each other.

"He told me they got attacked 20 hours a day. Four days before he was killed, he told me about similar roadside attacks on Humvees," Taenzer said. "I was getting crazy."

Still, his words gave her comfort. Hayslett was always optimistic. Taenzer found it contagious.

"When I would say 'Take care,' he would say 'Always. Nothing can happen to me."

In the back of his mind, though, Hayslett knew how dangerous the situation was. He made a pact with his best friend. If anything happens to me, he told the buddy, promise you will call Bianca.

When that call came, Taenzer could not understand how it could have happened. Hayslett was the gunner on a tank crew. What was he doing patrolling Baghdad in an unarmored Humvee?

"I thought 'He's a tanker. He had to be in a tank,'" Taenzer said. "His best friend in the Army told me it was too expensive to roll a tank. It cost less for petrol to use Humvees."

Like Hayslett's family, Taenzer refuses to be bitter about the circumstances of his death.

"He was thinking positive about everything down there. He thought he was doing good things for those people," she said.

Hayslett was supposed to return to Germany in December. He was scheduled for a 30-day leave this month. He and Taenzer had been planning a trip to the United States. He wanted to bring her home to meet his family.

Taenzer made the trip two months early.

She came alone.

She came for his funeral.

CHRIS A. COUROGEN: 975-9784 or ccourogen@patriot-news.com