Some week..

Hey all, its been a long week sorry for the delay in posting. 

As most of you already know, last Sunday, while returning from a convoy; we lost two soldiers in an explosion outside of KAF.  SGT Michael Strachota and SSG Robert Massarelli.  I will tell you briefly what happened and what has transpired this past week here on KAF. 

Last Sunday (June 24) we were returning from a mission to a base on the west side of Kandahar City. When we got to about 1/2 mile from the KAF gates, approximately 5 trucks ahead of me there was a pretty large explosion.  All I saw was a flash and then a fireball and smoke, it came out of absolutely nowhere.  At first we weren't sure what was going on because our trucks comms were temporarily down, I got it fixed shortly after we saw the smoke and heard the CC ( convoy commander) calling out "IED IED IED".  Of course the convoy immediately stopped and began pulling security and searching for triggerman, secondary IEDs, ambush points and pointing them out on the radio.  Instinct kind of took over at that point I think and its true that repetition produces habit.  You do the drills we do everytime we leave the wire, which is good, its just extremely unfortunate that it had to be used for this.  I don't really want to get into the details of it because you don't really need to know about them but it was an extraordinarily hard day.  Its one thing to hear about these things happening, it is quite another to see it happen 300m ahead of you and have it take away people you have worked with.  I didn't know either of them very well but from all accounts there were exceptional soldiers and people and it is a horrible feeling to sit there and not be able to do anything to help them. The incident is still being investigated as an IED or whether it was a terrible traffic accident.

If any of you have seen the movie Restrepo, in the movie a good friend of the unit Doc Restrepo is killed in a fire fight and the members of the unit explain how they felt.  One guy says "you hear on the radio that someone is hit and immediately in your mind you start going through the list of people on mission with you and hoping it isn't them."  I could not put this any better, don't get me wrong, the fact that anyone was hit is awful and of course you don't want anyone you're with to be hurt, but you start thinking who it could be and in this convoy I had one of my good friends and roommate PFC Delong with me and I thought it was him for about 20 mins as we didn't hear any radio traffic from their truck.  Later we learned who it was and while I still felt awful and my heart goes out to the soldiers, the 96th trans and their families, I would be lying if I didn't breathe a little easier when I saw Delong and Smith later that day.

The memorial service was a couple days ago and it was one of the saddest things I have ever gone through.  They say that there is nothing worse than a military funeral, I would have to say that a close second is the memorial ceremony conducted by those who were closest to the soldiers in their final months and weeks.  You create such a bond with these guys and girls that you become close to family.  You spend everyday, every waking minute with them and you get to know them better than some people in your own family.  It's a bond that can't really be described unless you have gone through it.  To watch those people talk about the fallen is very tough for everyone in the room, even if you didn't know them personally because it strikes a cord with you for a few reasons.  For one, you start thinking about "what if I had to go up there and talk about ________, what would I say? Would I be able to hold it together? What would I say to their family when I see them?"  The other is that the military is a massive brotherhood as cliche as it sounds, it is.  Anytime you see an ACH on top of a rifle behind a pair of boots, its sad because you have lost someone that gave up comfort in the United States, left home for a place that wants us gone, sacrificed family friends and relative safety for a place with none of that.  They came to a faraway place voluntarily to help in some way, to be something bigger than themselves and to serve the greatest country the world has ever known.  Excuse my concieted tone for a moment, but we are the best America has, because no one wants to do this but us.  No one else wants to go risk everything for next to nothing, less than 1% of Americans are willing or able to do this job.  Having said all of that, it is still an absolute honor to do what I am doing right now and as much as I miss home, my friends, my family, summertime in Ohio and Lindsey, I don't think I would rather be anywhere else.

Don't be mad for that last comment family and Lindsey, I still miss you in an amount that Im not sure I can accurately describe.

Thats really all I have for you all right now, we did go on another mission and returned safely back to KAF on Thursday but having said all I have it really isn't important.

Please just remember SGT Strachota and SSG Massarelli for the heroes they are as well as their families and the 96th TC of Fort Hood, TX.  They need your prayers more than I do at the moment.

Love you all!