thisnewday

My nephew Erik is a professional firefighter based in Washington State. My sister, his aunt, called me from the West Coast today to tell me, among other things, that he's been dispatched to help contain the Redding fire in California. His specific mission is to help defend residential areas threatened by the fire.

Erik is a young man who has been in public service since he graduated from high school. He served 6 years with the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Following that, he served in security with the U.S. Treasury Department before taking his current position with a Washington State fire district.

His mom is, of course, concerned about him, especially given the unpredictable nature of wildfires, some of which are literally capable of generating their own weather systems.

Needless to say, our thoughts are with her and we wish him, and his fellow firefighters, well...

LPK
Dreamwidth
8.1.2018 

My sister's house is on one of those streets where you park your car with the front wheel turned in against the curb. That way, if the parking brake slips, the car won't roll down the hill. A short distance away, in the bay north of San Francisco, is a mothballed fleet of naval transports and other ships from past wars. This day, they appear motionless on the shimmering waters. "What a beautiful place to have grown up," I think.

In the livingroom, with its high, vaulted ceiling, is a table covered with memorabilia. Looking up, I think, "Geez, most places I've lived could fit in this room." Bill and my sister had done OK, financially at least, before the divorce. Bill had been a fireman in Berkeley and if you've ever listened to firehouse stories, imagine his, working in a town like Berkeley. Their son Erik had inherited Bill's sense of humor. That, and a willingness to take risks, judging from their choice of occupations.

My wife and I have just flown in from the east coast, to set up our youngest daughter at culinary school in San Francisco. Sarah and her cousin Marc, who lives in Nevada, have both recently graduated from high school. And since it's rare to find all of us in the same time zone, Erik's mom thought this would be a good time for an impromptu graduation party.

The stuff on the table is about what you'd expect at this sort of thing. You know, the growing-up pictures from grade school and little league and family vacations. But Erik is already two years out of high school, by this time, so some of his pictures are from the DMZ, when he was stationed in Korea, as well as his recent graduation from Ranger Survival School.

My sisters are really good at this artsy stuff. The pictures look like they're professionally matted and their arrangement on the table is like the banquet staff did at the hotel where I worked. You know, for the fancy receptions and big business conferences and such.

My other sister is late, driving down from Carson with Marc. Marc's dad has a Berkeley connection also. He's a legacy graduate of UC Berkeley and his father, Marc's grandfather, had been a hotshot architect in San Francisco. But apparently that wasn't for Marc. In a few weeks, he would be starting pre-med at the University of Nevada-Reno.

Erik had already been to Iraq, before Ranger school. The centerpiece, on his part of the table, is a photo taken from the door of a Blackhawk helicopter on its way to a raid in Mosul. It looks like that scene from Apocalypse Now, with the gunships swooping in out of the sun, door gunners leaning into the smoke and recoil of the fifty-calibers, and Wagner's "March of the Valkyrie" blaring from the speakers.

As I look at it, I'm thinking, that's gotta be Donald Rumsfeld's way of getting more "bang for the buck" out of his "reconfigured" army. Put a Ranger's beret on a twenty year old kid, send him into firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan and then, if he lives through it, send him to survival school. Rummy doesn't want any darn slackers at Fort Benning, by gosh. No wonder the generals want him sacked. Probably should do the same with that no-show slacker who hired him.

Anyway, we had the party and nobody's car rolled down the hill. Soon afterward, Company C, 2nd of the 75th, returned to Fort Lewis. While Erik was at Benning, the unit had deployed to Afghanistan to extract the survivor of a failed Navy SEAL mission along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The Rangers got him out. Hua! With the unit, on that deployment, was twenty-four year old PFC. Blake W. Samodell. Weeks later, he would die in a parachute accident over Fort Lewis. He was a personal friend of Erik's.

Erik has recently returned from his second or third deployment to Iraq and has talked about going to school, in a few months, following his discharge. I hope he does. For his mother's peace of mind and because he's sure as hell earned it. I hope he does it for himself and for all the others, his brothers and sisters in arms, from all the wars and all the services, who earned it too but never got that chance.


POSTSCRIPT

Erik was promoted to sergeant in the summer of 2006. That summer and fall, he was a trainer for his unit at Fort Lewis, Washington. In the winter of 2006-07, he was deployed, for the fourth time, to Iraq.

In the spring of 2007, following his return to the states, Erik was honorably discharged from service. It is a point of pride, with him, that he brought all members of his unit safely home.

Erik plans to reside in Benicia while considering his future. Among the careers under consideration: airborne EMT.

LPK
LiveJournal
5.7.2006