So this is my personal tribute to SGT Tommy Sweet.
For him, the boundary between the terrors of sleep and the terrors of what he faced during waking hours had thinned...
The images, sounds and smells were constantly before his eyes...
The blood didn't seem to wash off anymore...
None of this changes who he is... he is still the Tommy we know and love. It just consumed his thoughts at times. Unfortunately, the medications used to suppress the images seemed to have a more drastic effect and took him farther from us.
His mission here is complete. He gave everything he had for this mission. There is nothing more he can accomplish, and I couldn't...wouldn't ask him to go into the fray once more. But knowing Tommy, I wouldn't have to ask.
Even after his diagnosis, his instinctual ability and desire to save lives could not be suppressed. When the rockets impacted around the corner from our living area, there he was taking in the whole scene at a dead sprint, assessing casualties with a glance from a distance. He was simutaneously pulling off his tshirt as he ran down and overtook a panicked soldier who may or may not have realized that he only had the bloody stub of a hand left. With the speed of a calf roper, he had the hand tied off in his now bloody tshirt and stuffed it under his armpit, bearing down in a vice grip that would slow the bleeding and save the man's life. You can't train that kind of commitment.
I hope that if I find myself on my back on a stretcher, that it's Tommy's face I look up into. So it is a loss, as nobody else will get to experience the reassurance of his care.
2 comments:
I told Kristy that she can't read your blog anymore. She can only read Craft Blogs. She called me so upset today after reading your blog. I was trying to ask what you had written and Kristy kept saying, "Ryan just uses such fancy words I really don't know I just know that I'm sad and miss him" She sure DOES miss you. She was excited to see your face on the web cam the other day.
I agree shauna, kristy is banned...I am sitting here in the middle of the day, kids playing, sun shining, just crying...I preferred it when you were out in the middle of no where and it didn't sound like they were actually bombing YOU...I know women go down to the valley of the shadow of death when they bring children here, and I have walked it myself with Danny's birth, but it sounds like you are living in it this year and flying over it in that helo of yours. our friend who worked in Irag for a few tours came back fighting the same fights as tommy...you just can't live when your sleep is no rest from your waking hours. he is partway through a 3 year hawaii tour, and seems 2 years later, to be smiling again...don't know if he's sleeping. is it a terrible irony, that I feel comforted knowing there are soldiers out there who will know what to do like tommy in a crisis...as i anticipate at some point in our futures a crisis in the world...I feel reassured that someone in sleepy ol' USA will have the reaction and skills to deal with it? but it is, as Reagan said.,..the young men sacrifice not only their present lives, but also the life they would have lived, the fathers they would have been, on the alter of freedom. it runs with blood. one of the fathers of the revolution said the roots of the tree of freedom must be watered with the blood of patriots of every generation. surely it is growing well this season.
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