Memorial day

[noone]

Klasno Rhys was the grenadier on my fire team. He was a paramedic and relentless in his studies to become a doctor.
He was an amazing man of many talents.
He was also married and about to become a father. I had been badly burned and to avoid media concerns our leave dates were swapped.
My leave was during the week of mother's day. Simultaneously, Klasno went to FOB timberwolf near Haditha to bring back a fueler.
The deep buried I.E.D. made a crater 11 feet long, four feet wide, and seven feet deep. the explosion sheared off the engine compartment
and launched it over one hundred yards into the sky. Klasno was killed instantly.
His wife had a baby girl, and he never got to see his daughter.

If I hadn't been burnt, It would have been me - the fuel expert - to volunteer to retrieve the fueler. it should have been me.
Klasno was building a future for wife and daughter, and I am now struggling in my pursuit of an electrical engineering degree.
It used to be just a saying, but now I've learned first hand that it is an axiom of reality...

..."Only the good die young."...

2nd platoon leader, Rudy a Salcido (post hummously granted the rank of Sgt first class) was super-human.
Noble, self-less. He'd married his long time girlfriend, and they had adopted a little girl.
During the fifteen minutes of convoy briefing, you would be changed. We were a transportation company.
He could be your friend, your brother, but he was ALWAYS a LEADER. He lead countless missions.
He invited me to join his poker game, and started body building. His physique was transforming.
The outside was starting to match his inside, and I swear the man, he'd bleed Army green.

At the memorial service on base, over four hundred contractor civilians attended. They knew his name, they knew our patch,
and they mourned the loss of a man who'd changed their lives. ... in a god damned fifteen minute convoy briefing.

At Fob Timberwolf, I'd been tasked out to the marines. I spent a LOT of time working my ass off along side the Marines.
Nothing amazed me more - they worked in conditions too terrible to describe, and they'd did it with a smile.
You think gang life is tough, the streets are tough? you are a moron. you don't know what tough is.

you don't know tough until you are a Marine.

These guys did 80 kilometer cache sweeps, finding and destroying weapon caches every damn five meters, and I was with them.
The marines "Motor T" was a man who moved like a storm cloud and spoke like thunder. I only knew him as Master Sargent Mack.
I spent a lot of time with his men. They were bold, and HARD.

Msgt Mack, cpl Palmer, were killed by an I.E.D. Cpl Porta had his left arm sheared off.

I miss all of them. I would change places with them if I could. I think the world would be better for it.
But I can't. I am here. I have to take on the world from where they handed it off.
I suck, but I have their example to guide me to be a better man.

[Duncan Edwards]

All of that is kind of hard to respond to. Too often it's the best and the brightest that get out front and deal with things, pay the price, and leave us with memories and examples. It's important not to neglect that.

[noone]

All of that is kind of hard to respond to. Too often it's the best and the brightest that get out front and deal with things, pay the price, and leave us with memories and examples. It's important not to neglect that.

thank you Duncan