Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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Randall Jeppesen reportingBeing a soldier means potentially spending a lot of time away from loved ones. But that's not the case for one West Jordan couple who both serve in the same National Guard unit. Right now they're both driving heavy machinery along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Derek Frame: "Um, we're in the scraper cutting some of this."
Derek Frame joined the National Guard after getting married and realizing his military wife was going to be deployed in Iraq and he didn't want her to go alone.
Reporter: "What was your rank again?"
Derek Frame: "Specialist Derek Frame."
Reporter: "Doesn't she outrank you?"
Derek Frame: "Yes she does. That's alright, anyone would know that their wife outranks no matter what, even if they are not in the military, but I get a lot of crap for it, but it doesn't bug me."
Sgt. Tina Frame: "He says that if he was a Sgt. Major and I was a Private then I would still outrank him, so."
On the border, Sgt. Tina Frame is driving the track hoe to build the border fence. Her husband is about a mile away driving the scraper building a road.
Sgt. Tina Frame: "They like to say I was better on the scraper but, then he can do the greater a lot better than me."
Reporter: "But, are you better on the scraper than he is?"
Sgt. Tina Frame: "Yeah I am."
Derek Frame: "Uh, she probably is for the scraper so I will let her have that."
But serving as a couple doesn't give you any special privileges, as they found out during their one-year deployment in Iraq.
Sgt. Tina Frame: "I mean we can't act like were married, ya know. Since we have such a good friendship I mean so it was easy. I mean it was just like we were best friends over there, but not husband and wife."
The same rules apply here; they only spend a couple of hours together in the evening.
Sgt. Tina Frame: "We usually sit be each other, we go over to the Marine base and eat. Last night we made it over to the laundry mat, so that's about all we do."
Specialist Frame says he's learned a lot following his wife's footsteps, or tire tracks, and his feelings for her are still the same.
Derek Frame: "I love her and I am proud of her for what she does."
These are two soldiers that don't seem to mind the triple digit heat because all the heavy machinery down here is equipped with air-conditioned cabs.
