Futures Lost, Futures Gained

These days, as I ponder the distinct possibility of a second deployment to Iraq, my thoughts wander to my son and daughter. Their smiling faces flash across my minds eye, warming my soul. The future, my future is bright and shining, even if I’m not in it because I know that my legacy will live on without me. I don’t relish thinking about my children growing up without me. Kids need their parents. My daughter, as beautiful as she is as a child, will be a stunner as a woman, just like her mother. She’ll need me to fend off the less than stellar suitors that will surely come, as she gets older. And my son will need me to teach him how to play hockey and lacrosse and to be fair and stick up for his friends. They’ll need me to read to them and help them with math and all of the other tiny details that will help shape them and make them good, strong, independent adults.

Do you know what hurt more than anything else during those last hectic days in March of 2003? Thinking of those Marines we lost during that terrible time in Nasiriyah. I remember the sun beating down on my helmet, the smell of a decaying country in my nostrils and the beautiful, bright blue sky with wispy clouds dotting its expanse. But most of all I remember the futures lost during those first confusing days of combat where America lost some of its finest and where I stood feeling helpless as it unfolded around me. That’s what I thought about as I stared at the sky from my trench, desperately trying to fall asleep on 23 March 2003.