OSFG
10-22-2019, 09:47 AM
On Saturday, 19 Oct 2019, My Best friend deployed for the last time.
I met him after my 2nd tour to Afghanistan, A gangly kids with a wife and two boys of his own, about the age of my 2nd and 3rd sons.
His wife and mine had become best friends during my second tour and when I got home she said, "Come and meet your new Best Friend".
He was everything I wasn't. Thin, dark complected, Ghetto. Wearing a torn Auburn cap, shorts, white socks and flip flops, member of the 82nd Airborne.
After a few weeks home I told him, "If we're gonna be friends...You're gonna have to think about joining SF."
It was more a joke at the time, but to my surprise he did. two years later after my 4th Tour to Afghanistan and just as I was retiring, he made it through the last part of training. SERE school.
I ditched a job interview to be there on his last day in SERE school, because I knew how emotional it is and how seeing a friend would help him readjust to his new found freedom from the Prison Camp he had been in. I showed up in my suit and Tie, because I was driving to my interview when I decided to ditch it.
He turned around to see our flag, and hear our Anthem, and saluted...bawling his eyes out as we all had done. Then they were Liberated and I was there to hug him and give him a candy bar. He was a filthy wreck and ruined my suit with his grubby hug. But I didn't give a shit. My "Lil" Brother had become a Green Beret.
I retired and moved out into Fayetteville, and during his 1st tour to Afghanistan, I helped his wife buy a house in our Neighborhood. He came home a different person. Injured in an IED blast, I could tell he felt guilty because he was driving and believed he "should have" seen the scuff marks where the bomb was that injured him and his team mates.
My happy go lucky Best Friend was now a lot more like me and had become "Bent". He drank more, laughed less, and became withdrawn. He deployed to Pakistan and then again to Afghanistan. I was on my 3rd Trip as a civilian to Afghanistan and surprised him with a visit in Kandahar. He was headed out the gate to do a combat patrol when he saw me and stopped his team to get out and hug me.
He got into a heavy firefight on that patrol, but made it back that night, and I came back to share a "Non General Order number 1" beverage with him. Months later he had to endure a Court Marshal and reduction from E-7 to E-6 for drinking, then they sent him to a different firebase where he hit another IED and days later busted him from E-6 to E-5, then finally he was diagnosed with severe PTSD and Traumatic brain injury (from the first IED).
3rd Group wanted him gone and was gonna just chapter him out of the military. I convinced him to fight them and two years later he received a Medical retirement with 90% disability, but it cost him his marriage. He moved away and that was the last time I saw my Best friend in person. He eventually married his high school sweetheart and had another child and we reconnected.
He would call me on the bad days, and I would talk him through the rough times and let him know he wasn't alone. He called me on Oct 7th and we video chatted for two hours. He was afraid he had irrevocably damaged liver with his drinking, and feared he would lose the love of his life due to his issues. He broke down crying, telling me how he was afraid of dying and missing out on seeing his little boy grow up.
Well I began to describe the symptoms he was feeling. Dry heaving until his diaphragm felt like it was destroyed. Gagging up bile so acidic it burned the esophagus. Liver swollen and feeling like it was going to explode. and having so much alcohol residual in your liver that every time you drank water you would get drunk again. He said to me, "My god, I'm not alone....You know about this too."
I assured my best friend that, although I can't say how much we had hurt ourselves already, that if he started drinking water and eating good food, in as few days he would feel much better and to "Please" go see a Counsellor and get back on the PTSD medicine, as it has helped me greatly, although I still have my episodes they are much fewer and further between.
He said he would, and I told him, "Brother, you can't fear death. It is always right around the corner and that its the easy part. Living is harder". I told him worry about what decisions you make, not about things you can't control, because you can die just walking down the street."
I texted him a couple days later to check on him and he replied, "I'm feeling like a rock star now".
Saturday morning I got a text that My Best friend had died. He was struck by a car while walking down the side of the road. I only hope that he faced death without fear.
I rode my bike 650 miles that day. 12 hours total, of listening to the engine and thinking of my Best friend. I will ride every year on the weekend around the 19th of Oct to remember him and his service. I do not know if I was his best friend, but I do know he was mine. Probably my last Best Friend, because I just don't have the energy to make another one. It took 5 years to make him into mine, and I only got to enjoy him for 10 more years.
I regret telling him to join SF, because I believe I started him on a path that not only irreparably damaged me, but also destroyed the gangly, happy go lucky kid I'd met years before. However he told me he loved being a Green Beret, and I won't take from him that which he earned himself and wore proudly.
God Keep you Mackie.... See you when I get there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjkeXKPQOI
I met him after my 2nd tour to Afghanistan, A gangly kids with a wife and two boys of his own, about the age of my 2nd and 3rd sons.
His wife and mine had become best friends during my second tour and when I got home she said, "Come and meet your new Best Friend".
He was everything I wasn't. Thin, dark complected, Ghetto. Wearing a torn Auburn cap, shorts, white socks and flip flops, member of the 82nd Airborne.
After a few weeks home I told him, "If we're gonna be friends...You're gonna have to think about joining SF."
It was more a joke at the time, but to my surprise he did. two years later after my 4th Tour to Afghanistan and just as I was retiring, he made it through the last part of training. SERE school.
I ditched a job interview to be there on his last day in SERE school, because I knew how emotional it is and how seeing a friend would help him readjust to his new found freedom from the Prison Camp he had been in. I showed up in my suit and Tie, because I was driving to my interview when I decided to ditch it.
He turned around to see our flag, and hear our Anthem, and saluted...bawling his eyes out as we all had done. Then they were Liberated and I was there to hug him and give him a candy bar. He was a filthy wreck and ruined my suit with his grubby hug. But I didn't give a shit. My "Lil" Brother had become a Green Beret.
I retired and moved out into Fayetteville, and during his 1st tour to Afghanistan, I helped his wife buy a house in our Neighborhood. He came home a different person. Injured in an IED blast, I could tell he felt guilty because he was driving and believed he "should have" seen the scuff marks where the bomb was that injured him and his team mates.
My happy go lucky Best Friend was now a lot more like me and had become "Bent". He drank more, laughed less, and became withdrawn. He deployed to Pakistan and then again to Afghanistan. I was on my 3rd Trip as a civilian to Afghanistan and surprised him with a visit in Kandahar. He was headed out the gate to do a combat patrol when he saw me and stopped his team to get out and hug me.
He got into a heavy firefight on that patrol, but made it back that night, and I came back to share a "Non General Order number 1" beverage with him. Months later he had to endure a Court Marshal and reduction from E-7 to E-6 for drinking, then they sent him to a different firebase where he hit another IED and days later busted him from E-6 to E-5, then finally he was diagnosed with severe PTSD and Traumatic brain injury (from the first IED).
3rd Group wanted him gone and was gonna just chapter him out of the military. I convinced him to fight them and two years later he received a Medical retirement with 90% disability, but it cost him his marriage. He moved away and that was the last time I saw my Best friend in person. He eventually married his high school sweetheart and had another child and we reconnected.
He would call me on the bad days, and I would talk him through the rough times and let him know he wasn't alone. He called me on Oct 7th and we video chatted for two hours. He was afraid he had irrevocably damaged liver with his drinking, and feared he would lose the love of his life due to his issues. He broke down crying, telling me how he was afraid of dying and missing out on seeing his little boy grow up.
Well I began to describe the symptoms he was feeling. Dry heaving until his diaphragm felt like it was destroyed. Gagging up bile so acidic it burned the esophagus. Liver swollen and feeling like it was going to explode. and having so much alcohol residual in your liver that every time you drank water you would get drunk again. He said to me, "My god, I'm not alone....You know about this too."
I assured my best friend that, although I can't say how much we had hurt ourselves already, that if he started drinking water and eating good food, in as few days he would feel much better and to "Please" go see a Counsellor and get back on the PTSD medicine, as it has helped me greatly, although I still have my episodes they are much fewer and further between.
He said he would, and I told him, "Brother, you can't fear death. It is always right around the corner and that its the easy part. Living is harder". I told him worry about what decisions you make, not about things you can't control, because you can die just walking down the street."
I texted him a couple days later to check on him and he replied, "I'm feeling like a rock star now".
Saturday morning I got a text that My Best friend had died. He was struck by a car while walking down the side of the road. I only hope that he faced death without fear.
I rode my bike 650 miles that day. 12 hours total, of listening to the engine and thinking of my Best friend. I will ride every year on the weekend around the 19th of Oct to remember him and his service. I do not know if I was his best friend, but I do know he was mine. Probably my last Best Friend, because I just don't have the energy to make another one. It took 5 years to make him into mine, and I only got to enjoy him for 10 more years.
I regret telling him to join SF, because I believe I started him on a path that not only irreparably damaged me, but also destroyed the gangly, happy go lucky kid I'd met years before. However he told me he loved being a Green Beret, and I won't take from him that which he earned himself and wore proudly.
God Keep you Mackie.... See you when I get there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjkeXKPQOI