Fallen comrade
Posted by Michelle Tan on October 2nd, 2008 filed in Michelle Tan: Notes From Afghanistan
It’s a ceremony most people will never see – but one that others will witness more times than they care to remember.
Shortly before 9:40 tonight, a fallen American service member began his journey home.
Led by a military police SUV, an open-topped Humvee bearing his flag-draped coffin drove slowly down Bagram Air Field’s Disney Drive. On each side of the coffin sat his brothers-in-arms, men who are mourning the loss of someone who, to them, was closer than a brother.
As the solemn convoy passed by, service members of all services, of all nations, who had lined Bagram’s main thoroughfare, snapped to attention, their right arms raised in a salute, a small but final sign of respect to one of the freshest casualties of this war.
Most witnesses to tonight’s ceremony did not know the fallen service member’s name, or where or how he died. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. Regardless of who it is, every casualty of this war had a family he was planning to go home to, a life he was looking forward to resuming, parents who pined every day for him.
But now, he will be counted among those who will be forever young, frozen in time in service to his nation.
Almost all the people I write about every day and the some of the colleagues I work with every day have felt the pain of losing someone in battle. It doesn’t get any easier.
But our service members drive on, because that’s what they do, and for that, I salute you all.
To the man whose Fallen Comrade ceremony I was honored to witness tonight, may you rest in peace.
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