Thanks Robby

There's this guy I knew in high school. I say knew like we hung out, but it was more like we knew each other's names. After high school though he joined the military, Cody joined the military and we had more in common. I can talk to him about military life and he gets it. I read his myspace.com stuff just to stay in touch and for a while we emailed back and forth (and hey robby where are ya?).

I read his blog and saw pics of his war wounds. He was shot at 19 times, hit 6. 3 times in each leg. He posted pictures of his wounds. He posted pictures of the guns the guys used on him. He couldn't post pictures of the guys that shot at him because they're dead.

He had to come back stateside from Iraq to recover and he wanted to go back over there to be with him comrades. I was so upset he was injured and yet so proud he wanted to go back. I could relate to that.

I read his blog again and he said some of his friends died over there. I cried reading it and tried to type out something pretty to him saying I'm sorry. I couldn't wrap my brain around words though to say what I was feeling. Some times words just don't come. I settled for an I'm sorry Robby.

A couple days after I read his blog my dad asked me about him. Dad loves hearing about Robby. When dad talks about Robby coming in to the shop, he gets the same intensely proud to know him tone of voice he gets when he talks about Cody. I don't usually hear him talk about other guys that way. It meant a lot to him Robby brought his car out from Colorado for Dad to fix it in AZ. Dad didn't say that, but I could tell. I had to try to tell dad about Robby's friends dying in attacks. I couldn't though. I couldn't get past the tears and even now typing this all out I'm still crying. I think I can just so relate to it being Cody or one of my friends. It could be me feeling his pain. I feel for him in a way only other military people really understand. Dad got it though. I didn't have to say much and that's good because we were both crying. Dad said to tell Robby he was sorry for his loss.

I then complained about the American media and the way they talk about the war in Iraq and the way it makes me feel like the guys over there and the men that die don't matter. It bothers me. When Cody was gone, every time my doorbell rang I was so afraid it was someone coming to tell me Cody was injured or dead. It's a horrid way to live for months on end. Never mind Cody missing important family dates or me doing it all on my own in another country. Living every day with the fear your sons won't grow up knowing their daddy? It's horrid.

So at 1 am I couldn't sleep. I went downstairs and wrote out some journaling and today I finally did a page for it. Thank you for your service Robby. I'm sorry for your loss and the pain you are going through. There are people out there who don't know your buddies and we care about your loss and we still remember. I'm sorry.

Journaling I typed reads:We'd found the bear while unpacking, stuffed into the bottom of our garbage can, smushed in face and slightly dirty. I'd held him up to Cody and he said "Casualty of war?" It was one more thing ruined by the careless packers or movers during our third move in five years. One more precious memory tossed aside like so much garbage.

I'd thought of taking his photo and journaling about all of our moves and how this most recent move was the most terrible. I’d thought I would just title it with the flippant phrase Cody had used and it would be a somewhat humorous page on our most recent adventure. Then I read a fellow military member and former high school friend’s blog on his website and the flippant remark seemed all too flippant.

With tears streaming down my face I read how he was injured in Iraq. I had known this already. I knew he was shot at 19 times and hit 6 times, 3 in each leg. I already knew he had come home to heal and was hoping to go back to Iraq to rejoin his comrades and once again protect their backs. I knew all this and while it broke my heart he was injured, it made me so proud to know how utterly convicted he was in rejoining his comrades.

So this day when I read he had lost three of his buddies, three men he worked beside each day, three men he promised to help see safely home… I lost it. I could hardly read through the blurred vision and yet somehow it seemed like I must. I wept for men I did not know and families I longed to comfort. I wept for things that could not be for them and unequal pain my friend was now experiencing. To have to not only attending someone’s funeral, but have to explain to his friend’s parents what a great person the man was and it shouldn’t have been was.


Days later my dad asked how Robby was doing not knowing he’d lost his friends. I tried to explain over the phone what I had read and found I couldn’t do it through the tears and yet somehow my dad understood me. Nothing more needed to be said, indeed nothing more could be said since words could not make it past the lumps in our throats. Though we never knew them and will never have the pleasure to meet them in person, we felt the loss all the same. SSG Arthur C. Williams, SGT Andrew Bossert, and PFC Michael Franklin, you are gone but not forgotten.