Fellow soldiers grieve for friend

One of my favorite jobs was working for a small company back in Massachusetts. No one had any secrets there. It was an extended family with all the same problems any "family" had but all of us cared about our co-workers. When one of the employees suffered a loss of a family member, everyone showed up at the wake but the support didn't stop there. The worst loss was when one of the co-owners passed away due to cancer. He was not just a boss, he was part of our family.

We can all understand what it is like when someone in a "family" dies if we compare it to our own lives.

So far in Iraq it has happened 4,460 times and in Afghanistan 1,615 times according to Icasualties.org and even more when you consider deaths back home because of these wars.

If you have been unable to understand the depth of pain every member of a unit feels, this article may help you but it will help you more when you read it and connect it to your own lives.

"When he put his massive hand on your shoulder, you knew everything would be alright."

EMAIL FROM BAGHDAD


Fellow soldiers grieve for friend
Saturday, June 11, 2011
BY RANDY LUDLOW

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Spc. Bobby Hartwick was killed in a rocket attack on Monday in Baghdad.

Spc. Bobby Hartwick was killed in a rocket attack on Monday in Baghdad.

The band of brothers sat around the barracks in Baghdad yesterday, tossing out tales about a fallen friend.

Army Spc. Douglas Snow, a combat medic from Fairfield in Butler County, sat at the computer, condensing the conversation into an email.

You could almost see the wistful smiles and sense the loss underlying the words from Iraq as the platoon mates talked about Spc. Bobby Hartwick.

The 20-year-old medic from Hocking County had just finished a workout with his roommate. They were heading to the showers when the insurgents' rockets hit the base on Monday.

Hartwick; his roommate Spc. Emilio J. Campo Jr., 20, of Madelia, Minn.; Spc. Michael B. Cook, 27, of Middletown, Ohio; and two other soldiers were killed in the attack. It was the deadliest assault on American troops in Iraq in two years.
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Fellow soldiers grieve for friend