Death of a Military Policeman

Late Weds I received the word that a person that I hadn’t seen in 30 plus years had died. He wasn’t a teacher or a Mentor he was an MP (Military Policeman) like me. In fact he was a member of my squad in the 70’s- 80’s in Germany. The death hit me hard, harder than the death of one of my old comrades normally would. I have heard of other old comrades passing on from this life to the next before, in fact heard of it back in the late 60’s early 70’s but this on effect me more. I have been thinking about why for the past two days.

I have come up with an answer. It is real simple. He was a first for me. He was the first soldier I ever recommended for promotion to Sergeant he was the first soldier I recommended to attend a school, he was the first soldier to come to me and tell me he was going to marry another soldier. Yup a lot of firsts.

He was a big guy to, when I would conduct guard mount inspections, I looked at his throat instead of his eyes.

Remember on one of the first exercises we did in a LTA (Local Training aaea), in preparation for our annual training exercise, we got caught out in the rain. Rained hard very hard. So in the morning when checking the perimeter about 0430hrs checked one fighting position and all I see is water. No soldier no nothing. Second look reveals a punch at the bottom of the position. I think Oh hell he has drowned. This is not going to look good for this platoon especially after what happened on REFORGER. I reach in a pull the punch up and away. Out he pops dry and snug, except where I managed to spill water all over him.

A good solid man as I said, but he died of heart disease. Just reminded me how lucky I have been in this life.

Well Kev enjoy your stay at Fiddler’s Green, you earned it and remember it was always “OF The Troops, For The Troops.”