On July 23, 2007, 1st Sgt. Michael S. Curry Jr., Pfc. Adam J. Davis, Sgt. Travon T. Johnson, Pfc. Jessy S. Rogers were killed when a makeshift bomb exploded near their vehicle.
That July, my husband called me and told me about the 1st Sgt and his truck before I heard about it through our FRG. I didn’t know what to say, do, or how to react. Who ever knows how to react? This was the first time I was REALLY hit hard when it came to the casualties of this war. This was the first time that I knew who they were, I knew their names, I had spoken to them once or twice in passing... Davis has one of our CDs. It was... kind of close to home. These were DJ's guys, it was his First Sergeant, this was close.
It isn’t that I have been completely blind and ignorant to the fact that people die in war. Our soldiers are being killed in war. I know that. I know that there is a cost, I know that that cost is… heart wrenching, as I write this, I have that… butterfly feeling in the stomach, like when I get nervous about something.
Since July, our unit has had more casualties, but I found this picture on one of DJ’s friend’s MySpaces and it really touched my heart. The caption read “R.I.P my brothers.”
When DJ came home for R&R we talked very briefly about the 1st Sgt, and he told me how they had to go in after the blast and get them. Yesterday our conversation was a back and forth battle about how hard or easy the other had it. The past year, and for the next three months, he says, he is not who he was before war. He has “turned himself off” and he isn’t thinking about anything, anyone, etc. all he is doing is surviving.
I understood that when he first said it, but then as this deployment goes on it kind of makes me wonder, and it scares me a little... how much of "this" is he holding inside? How much of it will come back to bite us in the butt later.
Redeployment should be a time of excitement... and I am! I can't wait for him to get home... but it scares me to think of the possibility of "dealing" with the past year in the first two weeks he comes home. (Get what I mean?)
As Carissa has said before... we want to honor those who we lost. We want to remember them. They are not numbers. They are not statistics. They are not expendable. And we must never forget their names, their faces, and their cause.
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I went to Arlington once. I don't know if you have ever been, although you probably have been to some military cemetary. It's rather disturbing to look out at all those gravestones, and read the names. When you do that, it really hits you that all those death statistics in the news have faces. Not to mention families, friends, collegues, and significant others.
Although I do not support the war, I have great respect for our soldiers. They put their lives on the line for something that they believe is worth dying for. This is something I could never bring myself to do. I hope your husband stays safe, and I will remember the sargent and his family.
Casualities never seem to hit hard until you get a look at their faces, hear their stories, or see their loved ones grieve. We need to know that saying "just 3 people died" is unacceptable, because that's three whole lives lost that can never be continued.
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Mind Control is Easier Than You Think