I hate it every time I hear about a soldier, sailor, marine, airman, or vet dying. Sometimes I hate it more than others. This would be one of those times.
The man they’re talking about here is someone you probably have heard of if you know anything about MilBlogs: he’s Neptunus Lex. He was a good guy and a good writer. He beat us out a while back for best military veteran blog at the MilBlog conference and, I must begrudgingly add, rightfully so. He served his country, he served his fellow veterans, and he served up some great writing on his blog. There are many bloggers that knew him a helluva lot better than I did, but if you met him even once his absence from this earth would be almost palpable.
Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends. His presence will be sorely missed.
Fair winds and following seas.
I hate it too.
Rest in peace, Lex.
[...] http://www.thesniper.us/?p=9644 [...]
Waiting for confirmation that it was him, praying it wasn’t, but knowing odds are it was, made for one of the longest nights of my life.
I’m still numb from this. I also started having dreams again when I was napping of other friends I lost in aircraft accidents. It’s gonna take quite awhile to get over this one. Just still frikkin’ numb inside.
I’ll stick a link to this over to my place with all the others.
Thanks man for writing this.
It’s pretty certain it was Lex. Lex would not leave us hanging if it weren’t. Like you, Tim, I’m numb. Even after nearly 24 hours since I read Bill Tuttle’s email, it seems surreal.
Trust me, Tim: it was Lex. We have a good, reliable inside connection that tells us so.
Oh, I know it was Lex. My gut told me it was him as I waited in the hours after the first news report of a Kfir going down at Fallon. I also learned from Navy back channels that it was him and held on to the info until yesterday morning when we got the all-clear to post about it.
This is the one part I truly hate about our profession. We have to train like we will fight, and despite the safety regs and years of experience, people still die. 34 years later, I still have dreams/nightmares/whatever about 2 close friends I lost. One of them I had breakfast with not 2 hours before his plane went down. He was one of my closest friends and those feelings just don’t go away.
It’s like one line from a song I wrote for my first album. “They say that time will heal all wounds, but the bleeding never stops, it only lessens for awhile, returning in the dark with dreams of things that hurt.
Thanks, Sniper for being here too. It’s cathartic to be able to “talk” about these things.
V/R