Okay this is kind of strange. As I was spending my morning time with God this came to me like a river rushing over the rocks. I was just kind of shocked by how quickly this second post came up and how vivid the memories still are.
These experiences that I'm going to share are probably ones that I've honestly never shared with anyone outside the military before and if I have they have been few and far between. So to piggy back my last blog post I was talking about a soldier we had lost and how we all missed him. What I didn't share was that same day our entire company was there when we put his coffin a board a plane headed for home.
A few days after when things hand calmed down a bit my squad leader had been tasked to assemble a crew of 8 soldiers for the funeral. Seven of us where were part of the rifle team who were going to perform a 21 gun salute, the eighth is the bugle player. I remember going throw all the practices leading up to day of the funeral, drilling on movements, listening on commands, making sure our weapons were immaculate, and along with a crisp looking uniform. It was truly amazing to watch everything come together over the course of the week or so. How everyone involved put their best effort into everything they did just to honor this one soldier and he deserved it if you ask me.
The day of the funeral we were all their earlier to make any last minute preparations. The entire group of soldiers who made up from the speakers, to rifle detail it was simply amazing. Everyone was looking sharp, rifles we immaculate, and everything was in order. The hardest thing for me now is recalling the speakers and listening to them talk about Nick and what he had accomplished while on the deployment. They spoke of is ability to pick up on new equipment, his motivation to lose weight, to finish school to become a cop, and to be one of the best trained soldiers a leader could ever ask for. I remember marching outside of the building preparing for the 21 gun salute, hearing the commands, and going up front to pay our respects to our fallen soldier Sargent Nicholas D. Turcotte.
The vividness of the memories is still there today. I can see all the faces of everyone from the platoon, company, and leaders who came by to pay their respects. It's been to long since I've shared this memory with anyone, veteran and non veteran a like. This month of December which is usually a joyful month was turned into a month of morning, sadness, anger, and frustration. We had a couple more days off before we were allowed to return to duty after the passing of our friend. During this time we spent sometime shooting weapons, preparing our vehicles for our upcoming missions which we only knew that it would happen before long.
© Nathan Fahlin
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