Kaneohe Marines

[Vball818]

Last week's helicopter crash in Iraq involved 26 Marines stationed at Marine Corps Base in Hawai'i on the island of O'ahu. I will admit that the news didn't affect me that much and maybe it's because...well it's not a priority of mine right now to be thinking of all the soldiers and personnel who are out there, but when I heard, read and followed-up on this story my mind changed because it really affected the local people. When I read U.S. Sen. Inouye, State Sen. Hogue and Mayor Hanneman expressed their thoughts and condolences to the families - it finally hit me how devastating the loss is.

Gosh, am I weird for having such a delayed reaction of what our president has gotten ourselves into? I was annoyed and dissapointed that the president decided to attack Iraq and outraged that the Pentagon wouldn't allow pictures of maimed soldiers coming back to the U.S.(well they did show them on "60 Minutes" and "Dateline" and also pictures of the draped coffins and even when I set up a care package two months ago I just went through the motions, but for some reason last weeks loss bothered me. Why? It just did.

Since most of us are mainly concerned with our own lives, I was wondering does the situation...I mean war in Iraq runs through your mind at all, do you think of anyone you know out there or have you've gone numb?
Just wondering that's all.

[me]

Vball818 said:

Since most of us are mainly concerned with our own lives, I was wondering does the situation...I mean war in Iraq runs through your mind at all, do you think of anyone you know out there or have you've gone numb?
Just wondering that's all.

I knew a Marine (Brian Medina) that was stationed here in Hawaii that died in Iraq last month. The last time I chatted with him was over the phone just before his deployment which at the time was to be Okinawa Japan at Camp Hansen. We chatted for about 10 minutes on the last phone conversation we had together. This was his very first deployment to Okinawa Japan, and he was quite excited and talked about it. I told him what to expect when he got there, since I have dated and had many friends that was stationed at K-Bay and they told me about what happens over there, in the field and on their Liberty time. Just before ending our conversation that evening, we chatted about hanging out with each other when he got back. He was a really sweet guy. A person that never argued with anyone, open-minded to a lot of things in life, which I was surprised since he was only 20 years old. Everytime I would talk to him, he was always full of life and always had a smile on his face.

As months went by, I found out that his company (Bravo Co. 1/3) was heading to Iraq. I started to pay much more close attention to the local news here hoping no one I know in that company got injured or died. Then last month came, and while I was watching the news, the word came out that a few Marines from Bravo Co. died. It wasn't until the very next day while watching the news is when I found out one of those Marines was Brian. The picture that was shown was the exact same picture he sent me. My heart just dropped in disbelief. It took me a while to get over the grief of his loss, but, I am doing better now, since I have been feeling that I was truly a lucky person to have had him enter my life, and although it was brief, he will always be remembered by me. He was the type of guy that would walk into your life for a brief moment, but, will leave a wonderful lasting impression...forever.