Upon reading this article I discovered just how of a small world the military really is. My two younger sons were good friends with SSG Vile who the BG was talking about in this article, when he speaks of the Sergeant that despite being injured kept going.

The boys knew Bill from when he was stationed here at Ft. Drum. We did a motorcycle run in memory of Bill a few weekends ago and I was posting pics of that and thought I would see what else was out there about him. I came upon a follow up to this article that the BG had done about Bill upon finding that he was KIA on May 1, 2009 in Afghanistan. It was that story that led me to this one. It was a busy day that day so I just skimmed through it real quick and showed it to my husband that night. All of a sudden my Husband yells "THAT IS BOBBY HE IS TALKING ABOUT!". Our oldest son was the crew chief that the BG was talking about that was left behind when his chopper had to take off due to the firefight. Bobby was there for about 3 hours until his pilots could get back in to get him.

Bobby is deployed to Iraq right now, but he happened to be online that night that my husband realized that it was him the BG was talking about. It was than that Bobby realized that he was talking to SSG Vile in the aid station that day while they were bandaging him up to get ready to evacuate for further medical treatment. The strange part is that all 3 of our sons and my husband used to play Xbox live with Bill all the time after he had PCSed from Ft. Drum to Ft. Riley. Bobby and Bill never met face to face before Bill left Ft. Drum so they never realized that they knew each other from that firefight until that night when my husband told Bobby about the story the BG had done. I know I wish I had known the tie they had while Bill was still here, because I believe that he is one of the reasons that my son is still with us today and I would have loved to have thanked him.

I was an Army wife for 22 yrs until my husband retired. I am an Army Mom, Marine Mom and a Marine Sister. With that much military in one family it is inevitable that we be touched by the loss of someone we knew. My Husband, all 3 of my sons and my brother have lost friends during these wars. I am glad at least one of them got some recognition for what he did and what he stood for, even though he was too humble of a man to have wanted the recognition. For the others it is sad to see how they are just tiny blurbs in a newspaper lost between the pages.