Photo By Staff Sgt. James Hunter | Staff Sgt. Cleveland Carr, an infantryman with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st...... read more read more
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — At the age of 30, Staff Sgt. Cleveland "Sonny" Carr has been awaiting the opportunity to settle down with one particular woman the rest of his life. He's been married once and has dated off and on since then. It wasn't until he met, or reunited with, Maya Miller on Facebook that his life would seemingly change forever.
See, Carr is an infantryman with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and has spent a good majority of his military career deployed in Iraq. He's been there three times now and is awaiting his fourth deployment this summer, when the brigade will take off for Afghanistan. Marriage is something Carr wanted, but the true love was never really there, until he met his soulmate in Miller.
Miller, a native of Chicago, has a similar situation as well. She too is a divorcee with two children she raises on her own. She, however, is a very independent woman, dedicated to her children and her work as a seventh-grade reading teacher in Chicago.
The two of them knew each other while in the eighth grade, to include their first two years in high school, in Crete Monee, Ill.
Carr, at the time, was very fond of Miller. However, she did not like "Cleve," as she says, in a romantic sense.
"He was the funny kid who always made me laugh," Miller said. "Honestly, I had no idea he liked me."
Carr would leave in 1995, and would never hear from Miller again until July 2008, when they reunited on Facebook. While Carr was training cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, he began talking with Miller on the phone.
When he got back from his training exercise, he drove back to Chicago with one thing in mind — reuniting with an old friend.
From that day forward, Aug. 15, 2008, Carr and Miller have been a couple. From then on, their love would grow; they would continue to build a stronger bond and then one day they talked about marriage.
It wasn't as if they were talking about the two of them getting married, but if he were to ask her, would Carr ask her father first for her hand in marriage. It was a question that caught him by surprise.
In response to her question, he said, "If you keep the family involved in the relationship and give them the respect and common courtesy, not only will they feel appreciated they will also feel included."
If he were to marry their daughter, he knew he would have to include them in many ways.
"When I said that, I knew she wanted me to go forth," Carr said. "Just by her reaction, I knew she was okay with marrying me."
Now that Carr knew he wanted to marry Miller, how would he do so?
Well, later that year, Carr stumbled across a competition online — Essence's fourth annual "Will You Marry Me?" contest, which offered gentlemen across the country the chance to surprise their girlfriends with a wedding proposal and a shot at winning the wedding of their dreams.
Nearly three weeks after entering the contest, Carr received a call and was told he was one of the four finalists.
He was flown to New York to take part in a photo shoot and an interview. Carr then had to come up with an interesting way to propose to his then girlfriend.
He knew the perfect way to propose. They had already come up with an idea of having an early Christmas dinner with the two of their families.
"I kind of used that so she wouldn't get suspicious. She didn't know she was actually putting together her engagement dinner," said Carr.
Though there would be film crews on site to film the so called "dinner," he had her believe that they were simply there to provide both sides of the family a video of their first dinner together.
Another great idea from Carr to keep her somewhat "clueless" of the upcoming proposal.
On Dec. 19, 2008, the families met for dinner in Chicago. Miller's father blessed the food, and both Carr and Miller conducted a toast thanking all those who were present.
The entire time, however, only Miller was unaware of what was to come. Her family and friends all knew Carr was about to propose.
Once more Carr stood up and thanked everyone for coming out and went into how he felt about Miller. He turned to her father, who was holding the ring, took the ring from his hands and turned toward her.
While on one knee, Carr asked Miller to marry him. She said yes.
"What I felt when Cleve asked me to marry him was excitement, relief and anticipation. I was excited because I was in love and this man was going to be officially all mine," Miller said. "I felt relief because we were getting closer to our ultimate goal of being a family and living under the same roof as a family."
The engagement was filmed, along with many interviews and photo shoots, which can be found on the "Essence" website.
They are in competition with four other couples, who are vying to earn quite the lucrative price. Though as Carr stated, "Regardless if we win the prize or not, this is already a win for me."
Much is at stake though, to include money for wedding day necessities, a cake courtesy of a baker featured on the WE television show — Amazing Wedding Cakes — a wedding dress from the David Tutera by Faviana Collection, and a wedding consultation with a renowned wedding producer and designer, Diann Valentine.
In addition to the gifts, the winning couple will be flown to a fantasy honeymoon in Maui for six nights in two luxurious resorts, romantic dinners, traditional luau, couple spa treatments and much more.
Win or lose, Carr and Miller plan on spending a lifetime together, happily married.
Miller knew she wanted to marry Carr after their first weekend together.
"We had been talking on the phone for hours at different times so we had a lot of time to get to know each other without the distraction of other people and physical emotions getting involved. It was just us," said Miller. "I also knew I would marry Cleve when I saw how well he got along with my children. They clicked from the start. He didn't force the relationship, he just let it happen. It was one my expectations that any man I plan to marry must care and love my children as if they were his own. Cleve did exactly that."
She was unsure if she would ever marry again, because she thought she would not be able to heal her heart in order to love another man.
Obviously he did something right to attract Maya, helping heal her broken heart.
"What first attracted me to Sonny was his smile. His smile is very innocent and genuine," said Miller. "When I first saw him on Facebook and he asked could he call me, his smile brought how I remembered him from high school. He was always telling jokes and happy and making everyone laugh when we should have been paying attention to the teacher.
"So, when I saw him 14 years later everything physically had changed, but I knew it was him from his smile," Miller continued.
On Feb. 12, Carr and Miller will find out if they won the competition, as all four couples chosen as finalists meet during a live showing of "Good Morning America."
Win or lose that day, Carr still plans on taking her hand in marriage May 11, just prior to his deployment this summer to Afghanistan.
| Date Taken: | 01.20.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 01.20.2010 18:18 |
| Story ID: | 44188 |
| Location: | FORT CAMPBELL, KY, US |
| Web Views: | 435 |
| Downloads: | 177 |
This work, Strike Soldier competing for chance to win dream wedding, by SSG James Hunter, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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