I Miss You

It's quiet nights that make me think about these things. Trying to sleep but it's on my mind.

I remember the night I was told that my dad was terminally ill and that he might not make it until I got home. I was 5,000 miles away from home and was the loneliest I had ever been in my life. Steve Ebert drove me around the perimeter of our tiny piece of Iraq for an hour talking to me about life and reassuring me things would be okay. Ebert, I miss you.

I remember when I felt like I wasn't doing enough after I got back to Iraq and Jennifer Willett talked to me to calm me down and then made sure I got to go out on more convoys than just my own. Willett, I miss you.

I remember when the girlfriend I was with for five years cheated on me, and made me feel like it was my fault when I was away from home. Aaron Knight talked to me about his best friend who had an accident while driving with him and his brother- and how even though his best friend died in the accident, the accident caused the doctors to find cancer in his brothers chest. It was because of his best friends death that his brother lives today and with that he reassured me that things happen for a reason. Knight, I miss you.

I remember doubting if I could ever make it through the bullshit early on in training before my deployment. One cold, freezing rain November morning I woke up and took my post in a foxhole on a hill surrounding our camp. Miserable and wet, Ben DeBerry made me laugh so hard I literally cried (a feat) and continued to do so for the next sixteen months. Anyone in 119 can confirm this. DeBerry, I miss you.

I remember my chinstrap breaking on my first convoy through Baghdad. James Danzler and I were gunners in the back of a 20-ton dump truck that our unit had "converted" into an over-watch vehicle by tact welding crap steel to its hull. My Kevlar just kept falling off my head to the point where I just took it off and I guess I must have looked worried because Danzler looked over at me, took his helmet off and threw it on the floor of the dump truck, and said to me "no matter what I am with you". Danzler, I miss you.

I remember being accused of things I didn't do and watched things get taken away from me that I had earned. Mike Gauthier took me out drinking and reminded me that there were better things in life that dealing with bullshit. Cole Gruensfelder brought me chow day after day when I couldn't leave the barracks (and when I got my wisdom teeth out). Robert Laurendine took days off to take me around and helped me get the piles of paperwork I needed to fix my situation. And my entire Scout platoon made sure I never, not once, felt as though there were things to miss. Gauthier, Gruensfelder, Laurendine, and all my Scouts- I miss you.

There are so many more memories I could right, all a lot more personal than the ones above. However it's 4:30 am and it's probably time for me to crash.

Just needed to write.

"Brotherhood is the very price and condition of man's survival." - Carlos Romulo