5 June 08
I’m watching grown men cry. Feeling that all too familiar tension- the weight that seems to physically be around my neck, the pressure in my head and focused behind my eyes, and the cloud that attends it.
It’s the feeling I tried to describe to my father as my departure crept up on me. The concern, sadness, uncertainty, and the realization of your inability to do anything about it.
I stood in the operations center, ears straining to catch every conversation, eyes not moving from the screens in front of me. It was only the bang of the colonel’s fist on the desk at the radio transmission announcing the crewmembers were deceased, that I realized the finality of it all. It was outside my realm now. I was only standing there for any assistance my MEDEVAC crews could provide and my personal desire to DO SOMETHING. But now I felt more awkward and out of place. At that point I was simply an observer, a rubber-necker at the scene of an accident, slowing everyone else down. So I walked away.