Saturday, 15 August 2009
Major Chris Galloway: An American Soldier Takes His Own Life
Damn.
This one hit me right in the gut for some reason. I found this story on Malkin's site, and as I read the touching tribute his colleagues at Flopping Aces wrote about Chris Galloway and all his military accomplishments and personal achievements, it took me back 25 years to a time when I rode "eagle" with biker friends of mine. I have to admit that as I looked at the pictures, tears started to well up in my eyes.
Most of my biker friends were Nam vets, some Korean vets, the kind of guys you want covering your rear in a TOE. And most of them came back with issues of head that they couldn't get rid of. The ghost's of Vietnam haunted these guys all the time.
Most poignantly, I remember the few who couldn't understand a country that asked them to be ruthless warriors and then discard them like so much refuse when the bloody meal was eaten. Unable to transition back into American society they suffered these ghosts of Nam silently, spiraled into financial oblivion because work was impossible when you could explode at a moments notice, the homelessness, the physical reminders of their Tours of Duty; the wounds, the torture for those captured and released alive, the blood and guts of it all.
Those were the friends that I usually attended their funerals as they made the decision to opt out of returning to or remaining in civilian life on a permanent basis. They had no friends there... or here.
We as a people need to reach out to those who selflessly defend with gun and grunt, our freedoms here and abroad, be their friend.
God bless you and keep you Chris Galloway. Thank you for you service to all the grateful citizens. May God have mercy on your soul.
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