'Looking for adventure,' she finds fiance

"The same philosophy which led me to join the military led me to Erik's touring bus," Emily Wilsoncroft, 27, says of her romance with musician Erik Yates, 33. In November 2008, just months after returning from her second tour in Iraq, Emily was visiting her parents in Syracuse, N.Y. She took her mother to hear Hot Buttered Rum, a Bay Area group in which Erik plays and sings. At the set break, Emily found her mom deep in conversation with Erik.

"Her mother introduced us," Erik jokes. "It was quite old-fashioned."

After the show, Erik met up with Emily and her gang for pizza - a situation that morphed into a one-on-one chat session. Next thing, Emily was hopping on the tour bus. "I had money saved from the Army," Emily explains, "and I was looking for adventure."

"We never had groupies," emphasizes Erik, who grew up in Mill Valley and attended Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. "I convinced the band that Emily was someone special."

At the end of the tour week, the two made plans to meet in Denver for New Year's Eve, but Emily ended up west even before Christmas. On New Year's, it became official when Emily jumped onstage for a kiss with her new beau. Reluctant to part, both returned to Oakland. Emily, who had been a journalist in the military, soon started community college. Her hope is to transfer to Cal.

Last fall, around the time of their anniversary, Erik shocked Emily with a marriage proposal. "He was even down on one knee," says Emily, who replied with an enthusiastic, "Hell, yes!" "It surprised me a little myself," Erik says.

"But Emily is special," he explains. "She has a resilience that is unique." Erik, who declares himself both anti-war and anti-military, conjectures that it may be due to what she's been through. "So much rolls off her back."

"Today there's no one lobbing mortar at me," says Emily, who volunteers with the groups Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veteran Artists. "Plus, unlike in the military, I'm not surrounded by people who are miserable."

Having been "recruited" out of community college before 9/11, Emily was told her military career would entail learning the craft of journalism, but she didn't figure that would take place in Baghdad. An Army journalist, she says, is told what to write. She also explains the embedding of "outside" reporters. "They were instructed with whom to talk, and those soldiers were essentially told what to say.

"And what not to say," she adds.

Before her last tour, she was "stop-lossed": Her active duty was meant to end, but she was involuntarily sent back to Iraq. "In the military, you have few rights."

This September, the former Army specialist and the seasoned musician will be exercising their full freedoms by exchanging marriage vows. "Being with Erik has helped me return to who I really am," says Emily, linking arms with her fiance.

Louise Rafkin has contributed to the New York Times and NPR's "All Things Considered." Couple suggestions? Send a story to onthecouch@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page N - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle