It was a pleasure to meet Robert Stokely and as soon as I get my work obligations in order I will have some video of the event memorializing his sin on the anniversary of his death. He marks another solemn date with the following piece. August is a particularly difficult month around our house especially August 16 and the 11 days that came after. August 8, 2005 was the last phone call and chance I got to speak to Mike before he was killed a week later. We gather at Mike's grave at 1820 hours on August 15 to Remember Mike at the time it was here in Georgia when he was killed near Yusufiyah in the early morning hours of August 16. It is amazing how so many still come to be with us and there are always new ones in the crowd, and of course, as is going to happen, some are not there that have been. This year several of our regulars were serving in Afghanistan. And the family of SFC Mark Allen were not there because he was seriously wounded July 8, 2009 in Afghanistan. Mark served with Mike in Iraq and he and wife Shannon had not missed a time at the annual gathering on August 15 at Mike's grave. Mark's future and that of his family is now uncertain as he battles a serious brain injury from gunshot wound. As we gathered a few days ago, we remembered him, wife Shannon, son Cody (12) and one year old baby daughter Journey. Two of Mike's good friends from high school and college and who joined the National Guard because he joined and talked them into it are with Delta Company 1st Battalion of the 121st Infantry, 48th Brigade Georgia Army National Guard. SGT Charles "Chuck" Crowder and SGT Alden Williams now serve somewhere in the eastern part of Afghanistan (actual location not mentioned for OPSEC reasons). They were supposed to be together this deployment but the Army had a different idea and they are split up. Last deployment to Iraq when Mike went they were all three in different units because they wanted it that way to help increase the chances at least one of them made it home. I used to watch the "Moon over Yusufiyah" as I called it when Mike was serving south of Baghdad four years ago. Now, with Chuck and Alden in Afghanistan, I think of them as I watch the "Moon over Yusufiyah" rise over my home at night. They couldn't be there this year on August 15 but they called and they sent wishes through their family, including Alden's sister and mom who came. Chuck's wife, Capt. Donita Crowder and their two daughters, Destiny (Mike's goddaughter and Charlye Mikalya (Mikalya after Mike) couldn't be there because Capt. Crowder is in train-up to go to Iraq early 2010 and the girls are staying with her mother, a retired U.S. Navy Veteran. They know how sharp the point of the sword is, but yet they, along with Mark Allen and his family, continued to serve even in the wake of their dear friend Mike's death. Last Saturday, August 22, I reflected on the Memorial Service we held to Remember and Honor Mike before he came home and at which I gave his eulogy. I was at the Freedom Concert hosted by Sean Hannity and honestly, it was difficult for me to stay as they continually honored the fallen - it was a day that was too wrought with emotion maybe to be there for that. I thought of the service four years ago and my eulogy of Mike. I don't do prepared speeches, rather I speak from the heart. I generally speak so from the heart that I don't even usually know what I say afterwards, and August 22, 2005 was certainly that day as I was laden with grief. I had to go back and look at the video to be able to know what I said that day, But, I got through it at his Memorial Service. Today, as I sit here on August 24, 2009, I am reflecting on being at the International Airport in Atlanta, just 30 miles up the road from where I live - four years ago. At this moment and time of 1800 hours , I had just met Mike as they uncrated his casket in the U.S. Airways Air Cargo Hanger and neatly draped and cornered an American Flag over him. As they did this, I saluted as best I knew how, given I never served in the military and had never been taught how. I held my salute until they put Mike in the rear of the hearse. Tears dripped down my cheeks and onto my navy blue blazer as I stood in the doorway from the Air Cargo Office to the unloading bay in the warehouse. They wouldn't let me go out there because they were concerned about my safety with moving equipment and also, because they weren't sure how I "would handle it." As I saluted and cried, the office staff froze, suddenly realizing what I was there for and what was going on outside their office as they too could see through the window to the warehouse. The warehouse staff came to a stop as they realized what was happening. I could feel their stares of disbelief and wondering what "to do." As I ended my salute, I walked outside to call my wife Retta, who loved Mike like one of her own. He was the reason we met and had been there every step of our courtship and marriage, including being in our wedding. It was at our wedding that he gave me - us - our favorite memory of him, and it was a story I told in my eulogy of him at the Memorial Service. As Retta answered the phone, my voice quivering and tears still streaming down my cheeks, I simply said "Our boy...
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/IQot1vO4kic/robert-stokely-remembers.html
Posted
Aug 25 2009, 06:44 AM
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BLACKFIVE