My Friend Chris

I saw one of my friends from the 1st Cavalry Division today. For OPSEC reasons I won't give his last name, rank, or unit but a lot of you will remember him from OIF II. He was the most forceful personality

I last saw him in Killeen, Texas during my last R&R. It was a very hectic R&R and all we got to do was have lunch together. We have been in Iraq, the USA, and now Kuwait and we have never had a beer together. That is just how it is. General Order #1 applies. It says NO BEER.

Chris is an officer, a leader, and a warrior. He is one of our finest and men like him do a damn fine job of representing all that is great about America. He comes from a family without wealth and earned his officer's commision by getting a full ROTC scholarship through college and then made a career out of the Army. The Army has been good to Chris but he is nearing the end of his run with them. I think this will be his last deployment.

Like me, he has children and his are old enough now that they are cognizent of the danger he faces. They struggle with it and I can see in his eyes that he does too. He showed me photos of his oldest son today and the boy is growing up. I know Chris does not want his son to grow up too fast. A year is a long time to a child.

During the last rotation he lost troopers and he knows he will lose some this time too. That weighs heavy in your mind but Chris is enough of a soldier that he will fucntion and work as hard as he can to bring them all back safely. I hope to hell he comes back safely too.

We talked for a couple of hours and could have sat longer except that one of the other guys had to get back to his rat killing. I will get to see Chris again in a few days and we will hang out again.