but we will... carry on, that is.
one of the most impactfull losses i've ever endured was a former team leader. he died in the initial seize of Baghdad, and did so as he lived a hero in the true sense of the word. he didn't have to do what he did, but he rushed into fire in effort to draw fire in a thin skinned M998. the others present said it looked like star was with all the tracers hammering him. his plan set several free from the position they were attempting to hold and they lived on. as you can imagine, when all of this was happening, the radio was damn near ablaze with traffic. when the lance corporal reported over the air that GySgt Jeffery Bohr was hit and lost, the radio went silent for almost a minute- in the middle of all of that. the first words spoken afterwards was "last station, please say again your last", and followed by another silence. it was surreal that man went down- he was the last one who could fall by everyone's reckoning.
years later i'm standing in my own backyard. this is deeply personal, y'all... but i'm surrounded by friends from various walks of life, and some from that walk. their kids are playing in the pool. the gals are looking at the bottoms of their wine glasses mostly, and chatting/laughing in between... the guys are tossing quantities of beer between shots, and we all watch the smoker waiting to see what comes out of it, if it's fit for eatin', and realizing the more we drink the more fit it will be. it's kicking off the summer season day- aka memorial day.
one of the fellers asks "what do you think Sgt Bohr (we knew him as a Sgt before his promo's) would think about this?"... we were momentarily quiet and the smart ass of the bunch makes one of Sgt Bohr's famous quotes of severe disdain and ridicule directed directly at the guy who asked.... and we laughed our assess off, and continued that form of remembrance. but the truth of the matter was and IS- he would have been damn happy for what we were doing. Our families, our lives, our relationships, all of it. He once said to us about reenlisting "you don't do it for the money for damn sure, and not for the 'corps', you do it for your brothers"... that's how he lived and that's how he died.
Hooky lived a code, too- he kept us together and knew how to present things none of us have yet mastered. he's akin to my former team lead, though, in that his rarely disclosed sentiment was, beyond doubt, fellowship with each other. friendship. an element that is severely lacking in our society and that exist with the people of this community in display of a very exceedingly rare internet form... that is one helluva (he loved that word) legacy.
I hate it when people go all sentimental when it's uncalled for.
