[BartSimpson]

Earlier this year the sad news came to me that a close friend of mine was lost six months prior. His family was told that he was lost in action but the word that got to me was that he was captured and grievously and inhumanly tortured before being burned alive. I'd been friends with him since 1982 and losing him is like losing a family member. Knowing how he died when I speak to his family weighs heavily on my heart.

I wish it had been me instead of him.

I mention it because someone said something about me not being enough man to compare to some others and this wonderful lion of man was the first person I thought of. He's still on my instant messenger list and I wanted to send him the link to the thread to get his comments - which would've been funny and wise all in one cause that's what he was like.

I'll remember him on the 11th because I won't be able to think of anything else. And, no, he wasn't Canadian. Come next Memorial Day I'll go place flowers on his grave at the national cemetary in Dallas and I'll remember him yet again.

As real men go, he was the guy who was my role model. He was the guy who stared down a DI when we were in boot and then handed the DI his butt on a platter when the DI tried to make an example of him. The rest of us never properly thanked him for the next two weeks of hell we had to endure because of him, but his stalwart fortitude became legend among us. He was the guy a lot of us aspired to be.

Seventeen of my friends died in Beirut and now one more has died somewhere in the ME and he is surely keeping the rest on their toes in heaven.

[bootlegga]

My deepest condolences Bart.

[Arctic_Menace]

Wow, that's so sad...

You and this man's family have my condolences.

[TattoodGirl]

Sorry for your loss Bart and he will be remembered on the 11th. The 11th isnt just for those fallen in WWI, it is for all those who have passed, have served and are serving. Peace to his family and yours.

[martin14]

My deepest condolences to you and the family.

[PENATRATOR]

I can understand your grief Bart, I lost a very good friend during OP MEDUSA, I had seen him off at the Airport 3 weeks before he was killed, I remember shaking hands with him and saying "now don't be a hero". Got a typical E_mail from him one week before it happened, joking and bitching about the Admin BS that goes with just arriving in theater, itching to get off of KAF and into the shit. They did a piece in the Ottawa citizen a couple weeks back about another friend who was killed in Kabul from our Batallion a couple years before Rick got it, there was a pic of his wife at a memorial with all the Batallion's troops standing behind her, sadly there was My buddy Rick right behind her, really struck a nerve in me to see this picture. As with everyday I will be thinking of Rick at the cenotaph on Nov 11th, I will also be thinking of your friend and their sacrifice for our way of life.


At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER!

[hurley_108]

Wow. That sucks. I hope it wasn't me who made the not measuring up comment, 'cause I'd feel a right cad if it was. Nobody deserves what your friend went through, and nobody deserves to lose a friend that way either. My condolences.

[Chumley]

I am sorry to hear that Bart.
My condolences for you and your friends family.

[kitty]

i am so sorry for your loss

[BartSimpson]

Thanks everyone. Really.

[ManifestDestiny]

Sorry Bart.

Had a tragedy in my family 3 weeks ago also that why I have not been around lately.

My 19 year old cousin drowned in a lake with three of his freinds in upstate New York while fishing.http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bro ... id_to.html