Mary Gauthier made me cry out loud today.

[The Polack MSgt]

I just listened to "Soldiering On" and "The War After the War" from the album Rifles and Rosary Beads

I wept.

I am intermittently tearing up as I type this post...

Now I'm torn - I want that album and at the same time I am afraid to listen to anymore of it.

I deployed three times in my career - and as I've said elsewhere on this board I do not count myself as a combat vet.

I fixed gear. I was an electronics technician and as a Master Sergeant managed a repair/support shop in my last two deployments for an Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron.

We got the wounded out of 1st echelon treatment and back to theater or regional care facilities - Or over the ocean to Walter Reed if need be.

So I never kicked in a door or walked a patrol. I never even chambered a round in my rifle.

I (and my two man team) flew around the theater fixing radios, satellite terminals, oxygen storage & delivery systems, generators and other support gear for Aeromed Teams scattered around SWA the Horn of Africa and central Asia

But it turns out that I lost three friends over there, it just took differing lengths of time before death claimed them.

My three friends, well they all took their own lives in the years since I retired from the service.

Those two Mary Gauthier songs moved me in a way that I can't really explain or even grasp at this moment.

You know it hit you hard when you can't even decide if saying "thank you" or "fuck you" most matches your emotions...

[sheshe2]

1. ...

[DashOneBravo]

2. I missed this.

I get it.

When my son asked about joining the military. I asked him if it was something that he felt he needed to do. A drive somewhere in there to serve. (He’d grown up with me so I knew he did not).

He said no and we talked some about getting a job that didn’t include being in the Army or a ground combat unit. My father and I were both Infantry.

I told him being in the military puts a kind of burden on you that other careers don’t. I explained that when you serve long enough sooner or later someone you know will die. Combat, accidents are mostly the reasons. Now we have 22 vets killing themselves a day. I told him about when Iraq and A-Stan started I had over 25 troops I knew. I told him about checking the lists when you heard a certain unit was involved.

It’s a burden whatever job you had bro. I’m sorry

[The Polack MSgt]

4. Had to delete my 1st response

TMI

[Victor_c3]

5. I always hate running into people I served with

During those meetings I usually learned about guys who I served with who died in subsequent deployments or who became messed up in one way or another. I haven’t spoken with anyone from my platoon in more than a decade.

Service is a bitch. It just keeps on taking and taking.

[The Polack MSgt]

6. I work on the base I retired from - been years since I retired. So long that my best E-3 from OEF

- Is now an E-9 wondering if she wants to do another enlistment to go to Europe or to just retire.

So I hear about some of the drama - divorces and such - not that I want to... And every few years I get a "Did ya hear about --------?"

And it kills me for a day or two.

And then it kills me for a minute or 2 at random times for - Well Vic, as far as I can tell this phase is kind of forever.

peace