To My Warrior Friends and Mates: Gone from Here, Not Forgotten
1) Kelly C. 2) Scott C. 3) Robert P. 4) Jeremy H. 5) Scott H. 6) Ben S. 6) LT M. 7) Rob N. 8) Amarea W. 9) Paul F. 10) Max T. 11) Nicholas B. 12) Dave P. 13) Greg B.
They were among us, and now they are not. I write of them. Grateful for memories; still being here on earth, breathing in the oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. Not my friends, my cohorts, these warriors.
I did not know Scott H. too well. I have written about him before, how he was impressive and strong. He was. Like Kelly C., he was part of the Batchelor crowd, new to my expanding world when I took the bus past the train tracks to that developing part of town. He was already close to fully grown in 8th grade. I was far from my desired physical status. 14, 15 years-old. He usually had long hair, which a confident guy like him good wear pretty well. It was the 80s, a time where some studly dudes had long hair. Or big hair. Was MacGyver like that? Likely. He went to the Citadel in South Carolina, pretty sure. Not VMI in Virginia, but its rival further down south.
We shared a class my senior year, where he stepped up all the time, asked questions to get his math credits. Where I sat and held back. I admired his humility and courage; some things I was lacking in. I had given up on a lot of my math abilities, my cares for equations or graphing, or whatever the next lesson was. Functions, and on to calculus, or trigonometry. I was leaving myself behind, but he was pushing on. Football stud, military academy college guy. Around 2000, or 2002 or 03, Scott was the good Samaritan along the side of the road and was killed.
Maybe I heard the news from my brother-in-law. I cannot remember how I heard the news. Maybe from an email. Scott H. was a quality, good, strong human being. One wayward vehicle ended his life. We all, I must think a few thousand of us, think of him and wonder why such a good guy has to go so fast, so tragic.
Yep, Scott. You are just a warrior. Up in heaven, slaying some dragons, I would think. Like Achilles or Adonis. Yeah, like them. Greek or Roman, all epic.
Ben S.
He lived closer to me and some other friends than we knew. He was just down the road. But he was alone, I gathered when went to a shop where he would meet with others and hang out. 650 miles from our hometown in Indiana. Like 15 or 20 miles from me, and my other former Indiana friends living in my community. And the Florida guy Larry, who lived even closer to Ben than he could believe.
But Ben was gone. He ended things on a sad and somber note. He was far from his ex-wife and his small daughter. Probably a thousand miles away. As friends of his entire family, I see them when I return to Bloomington; I am happy to see them while sad to know that bright young blonde son, a tall guy who liked to play basketball, is no longer here to make his way to reunions, parties.
I got to know him the best in the late 90s, when we were members of the young single branch of IU. I think he went to jail for something silly. I did not pry too much; it was either none of my business or best not to know. Could have been marijuana, or alcohol, I used to think, and still do. Conjecture then and now may seem crass or unnecessary. He was bigger than any problems like that. We were assigned as missionary helpers. I drew up a plan for us to account for our efforts, whether it was directly teaching with the full-time church missionaries, or reading scriptures, or attending church, doing good activities.
I was becoming a teacher. Rubrics and accountability were in my brain. He responded to it well, which impressed or at least gratified me. Did it help him, or me, or the cause to bring souls to Christ?
Not sure. I think it didn't hurt, anyway. I don't know. I do not have the answers. I hope I may have helped all of the above. Hard to measure, hard to ever know many things.
But he was a sweet guy, from my perspective. He is missed. His girl should be big now, likely an adult. Perhaps a mother, too? We are missing Ben. The tall warrior.
LT M.
I call him this because I do not recall his name. I did not know him that long. We only talked a few times. We spoke in between buildings at military base where we worked, us doing our weekend "warrior" tasks and drills. We were warriors, or at least that is a nickname affixed to us. Soldiers in the U.S. Army have been called warriors for a generation or so. We have the warrior ethos, and other such appellations or nomenclature. We are soldiers, fighters, at times combatants, and warriors. We fight in wars, or at least we dress and prepare for such things.
Wars. Those fights make warriors, and thus we are.
This young man was not very tall, not very loud. I suppose many people did not notice him much. Then he died, and not many missed him from what I could tell. Not many of us knew him that well. I did not. I remember that I did idle up to him at one point in the previous months, and I talked to him, likely asked him where he was from, maybe where he attended school.
My armory put his picture up in the front foyer of our building at the entrance. He was there in the frame with his mom. I recall that she was smiling in the photo. He must have been, too. There real fast, gone real fast, from month to month our warriors come and go.
I think he was a decent guy. I can barely remember anything else. It would be sweet, to me, if another person that I knew in those times had some memories to tell, to share. Re-affirming that he mattered, that we mattered, our lives and efforts amounted to something. I believe it all is true. But it is better when someone else can confirm it and throw in a real fact or detail.
For others to do with Lieutenant M. For another day very far off. But that day will come. We will all go there. Till then. The quiet warrior.
Rob N.
I got to know Rob for a while. Maybe 2010 till his passing in 2016. I remember meeting him on a shooting range, mostly. He was an Arabic linguist, and unlike me could pass the tests with flying colors. Rob was super smart. After his untimely death, or at least for most of us who knew him, I wrote up a few pages about him and my impressions, and sent it to his mom. I asked her if I had her permission to send it to others. She never replied. I got to know her a little bit, from the funeral and the after meet up at a bar restaurant in Winchester. His sister was friends of our commander. Friendships and associations are funny things.
We are all connected. Rob and I were connected to other Arabic linguists, like two females who went to Monterrey like us, who went through Arizona, and we all wound up working the greater industrial complex, the one President Eisenhower coined years before our time, and we were all a part of it.
Rob was entrenched in the modern military industrial complex, and he was good at it. But something was wrong. I heard his farewell letter at his funeral service. He was eloquent and kind, but determined that things were not going to work. He wrote it months before his dad suddenly died.
Also, in December. Rob was a year later.
There are other things I could share, other feelings and thoughts. Suffice it to say, Rob was a soul warrior, or something. I am not sure. He was bright, smart, nice. I must say, now so mysterious. And young. We went asking about him at the main headquarters where he worked, where supervisors had known him.
Ahh, what a way to go. And about 26 years-old. So, so young, like some other warriors mentioned.
He was a warrior with us, and we wish we could keep him around. The linguist bright warrior.
END OF PART II.
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