The Story of Lima Company

One more day of regular class!! I'm so excited and antsy I can't even concentrate on the little grading and work I have to finish up. It has been an interesting couple of days. JC has been super busy with school (of course), but he called to tell me that he got a package I sent him. He said it made his day, which was obviously the whole point in sending it so that made me smile. He has a test tomorrow that I know he is nervous about so I wanted to make him smile. Speaking of studying, I emailed the professor of the religion class I will be taking this summer to tell him that I would be missing the first two class meetings and to ask for the syllabus and book list. He got back to me and after reading over the syllabus I am even more excited than ever! I'm sure my tune might change 6 weeks from now, but I am excited to be a student again and have something to do this summer 'cos I HATE doing nothing.

As for the title of my post. I got a comment today on a YouTube video I posted several years ago about the Marines of Lima Company. What is my relation to Lima Company, you ask? I'm an Army girlfriend, with no involvement to the Corps, right? WRONG!

It's quite a long story that starts my senior year of college. I was, at that point, not directly involved or tied to the military in any way shape or form. I was working on finishing up my history degree, which had an emphasis in military history, but aside from a deep admiration for our men and women in uniform, I had no connections whatsover. It was November 2004 and I remember seeing TV footage of Operation Phantom Fury (aka the 2nd battle of Fallujah). I remember being so moved seeing pictures of Marines and Soldiers who looked younger than me and at that moment I started searching for a program that would allow me to do more than just slap a magnet on my car to "Support Our Troops".

So I signed up for a program called Adopt-A-Platoon that would pair me with a deployed servicemember to support for the duration of his/her deployment. It took a couple months and even a phone call to verify that I was in fact, me, and was serious about the support I would provide. I was paired with a 19 year old Lance Corporal in March of '05 at the very start of his Reserve unit's 7 month deployment to Iraq. It was expected to be a rather uneventful deployment and for the first few months it was. I sent letters, emails and packages to my adopted Marine, who was quick to write me back and introduce himself. He told me to longer call him the formal name which the organization had provided me with and immediately picked up on my introductory letter where I informed him that while my name was Abigail, my closest friends and family called me "Abs". His first letter back to me read "Dear Abs" and I knew then that I had been paired with an exceptional young man who was not about to mistake my support as a dating service (like many unfortunately do). He was originally from Ghana, West Africa and his dad had been a U.N officer wounded on duty, which is how he ended up in the states. He joined the Corps right out of high school, but was pursuing a degree at Ohio State and just sounded like an all around exceptional young man. (My dad is still convinced he will end up being the Secretary of State one day!)

Anyway, his company's uneventful deployment sadly ended up being a nightmare. The emails and phone calls I received from him were difficult to read and hear, but he frequently told me how much talking to me helped as I'm sure they weren't things he could tell his family. I was out in Wyoming for much of his deployment and I think he loved hearing my stories about life on the range being chased by buffalo that were so far away from the hell he was enduring. His unit unfortunately ended up being the hardest hit unit to serve in Iraq (they lost 23 members, including 14 in a span of 3 days ). He and I developed a wonderful friendship and my mother and father would even write him sometimes throughout the deployment. Though I was not able to be there for his homecoming (which was an absolutely AMAZING event) because I was out in Wyoming, I did get to go meet him several months later. We kept in touch for several years after, but have unfortunately lost touch over the years.

I was so deeply moved by the trials of his company, and most especially, the way they were welcomed home that about a month after he returned home, that I put together this tribute video together using pictures he sent me while deployed and others from local websites of their homecoming. I get frequent comments and messages about the video, most often from family and friends of those who served, but often from the Marines themselves.



Every time I receive a message I always view the video myself. I know the stories and lives of these fallen Marines so well. Most of them were in my friend's platoon and he has told me a lot about them. Today I received a message that inspired me to check up on the company to see what they were doing and if they were deploying again, which I do every so often. Sure enough my old friend is deploying again, this time as a Corporal in charge of new Marines. He is apparently one of only eight Marines who went through the 2005 deployment that is still with the unit. Although I have not heard from him in several years, I sent him an email to offer my support yet again. I truly hope I hear back from him so that JC and I can support him and his Marines this summer. My life has changed so much since I last talked to him. I think about him often and wonder if he accomplished everything he planned on doing.

Anyway, I must finish making my final and figure out what on earth I should do on my last day of class tomorrow.

Reason for the Season

There is always such an uproar about how commercial the Christmas season has gotten and you often see bumper stickers with or hear the phrase "remember the reason for the season". I'll admit house after house of giant inflatable Santas and snow globes gets a bit tiresome, but I feel even more strongly about what Memorial Day has turned into.

Most Americans love Memorial Day because it means a day off from work or school, a long weekend and the start of summer. It means cookouts, trips to the beach and days on the lake. For military families, it means something else entirely. It means someone is missing their family this Memorial Day so you could enjoy the day with yours. Memorial Day is, above all, a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service.

It is also a day of mourning for so many families. There are a lot of people I want to pause and remember on this day. The picture above is of the widow of a soldier from my hometown, SGT James J Regan, who was killed in Iraq in February, 2007. He was a graduate of Duke University who could have done anything with his life upon graduating. He scored very high on the LSATs and could have gone on to law school, but he chose to enlist in the U.S Army. Most people believe that he enlisted because he felt it was his duty. My hometown sends a lot of communters on the train toward Wall Street every morning. On 9/11 a lot of those commuters didn't come back and there were funerals all over the town. No one can ever truly explain what calls someone to serve. Whether it is the challenge, love of country, or simply the sense of adventure and opportunity to "blow things up" (as many of my high school seniors going into the service have confessed), the bottom line is they sacrifice a tremendous amount and deserve to be remembered.

I can't lie, I am enjoying my three day weekend. I will enjoy cooking burgers and eating watermelon and pie with my big brother, but at 3 PM I will pause for the National Moment of Remembrance. Did you even know there was such a thing? I would wager 90% of Americans don't. Most Americans probably don't know why people wear poppies on Memorial Day. The reason for that is most Americans have forgotten the significance and traditions of Memorial Day.

The story behind the poppies, by the way, comes from a UGA professor who wrote a response to the WWI poem "In Flanders Field". The first line of the poem reads, “in Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row." The UGA professor was so moved that she wrote a response poem and vowed to wear a poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served. I leave you with her poem.

We Shall Keep the Faith
by Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Field

April 16, 2007

This post is a day late and was supposed to go up yesterday, but I ask all my blog readers to pause and remember the 32 people killed at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.

I had just returned from a trip visiting UVA when the news of this story broke. I was only 2 years out of college and I saw so many people I went to college with in the faces of the victims. One young man in particular jumped out at me. His name was Ryan Clark or "Stack" as he was known by his friends. I never knew him, but his picture and story captivated me in a completely unexpected way. Ryan was an RA in the residence hall where the first life in this tragedy, that of 19 year old Emily Hilscher, was taken. As a resident adviser, he walked over to investigate what was going on and make sure his residents were alright, was shot in the neck and killed. A bright young man, whose smile could apparently light up a room, who spent summers volunteering at a summer camp for special needs children, who was a month from graduating with a triple major and intended to pursue a PhD in neuroscience, gone just like that. Simply because he went to go make sure everything was alright.

I don't know why Ryan affected me the way that he did. I obviously did not know much about him, but as I said it was his picture and smile that captivated me most. The more I read about him the more I could see that the world lost an amazing young man. The world lost 32 amazing men and women that day. Lives snuffed out too soon for no reason at all. I felt helpless like most of the nation and wanted to do something to help the grieving friends and family and to make sure the memory of these students did not fade as the years go by. So I decided to honor Ryan in a very unconventional way. I made a video, using pictures people submitted to his Facebook memorial page and newspapers around the country, quotes from online tributes and messages left for Ryan. The purpose of the video was simply to remember Ryan and his life.

I could never have imagined the response that it got. It hasn't reached Susan Boyle fame, but 13,000 people have viewed the video and for those 3:30 second they remember Ryan. I have received many emails and messages about the video over the years, including a CBS news broadcaster who informed me that he had played the video for Ryan's mother and sister, strangers from around the world and a close friend who informed me how the video was shared with all Ryan's fellow Marching Virginians.

To this day, I still can't explain why exactly Ryan touched me so much considering I never met him. Maybe it was the smile, maybe it was that he reminded me of classmates I knew, perhaps it was the knowledge that in his 22 years on this earth he accomplished more than some people will in a lifetime. Just like Ross Almedinne, Jarrett Lane, Matthew La Porte and Lauren McCain and all the lives taken that day. Pause today and remember them. Say a prayer for their families and challenge yourself to give and do more with your life. That is Ryan's legacy to me.