Freindly Fire

It was Memorial Day weekend at Mystic Sisters, a new age store in Monrovia.  Our group that day was smaller than usual.  The meeting began with a bunch of WW11 veterans saying hello to a lady in the back row; mostly her father and some uncles.  Then they brought in a young man who made his presence felt to me.  He told me he had died in Iraq, that he had been blown up and had died along with about 18 of his buddies on the way into Baghdad, at the spearhead of the attack, as he put it.

His wife was in the audience, sitting in the front row.  She cried and acknowledged that the soldier was her husband.

He was very clear and spoke to her for a long time, sending his love to her and his two little boys.  There were also several of the guys that died with him that day saying hello to her.  One of the main ones was his friend and commanding officer, a very tall individual.  The wife knew all of his friends, as they often had barbecues at their house.  The husband also conveyed the fact that they were all killed by friendly fire, describing the whole event in detail.  The wife understood what he was telling her.  She had heard from some of her husband's friends who had come home, that her husband and the others were killed accidentally by their own side.  She believed it was true, but the military were not very forthcoming with the facts and would not confirm it to her.  Her husband told her to tell his fellow soldiers not to take vengeance or commit any atrocities on the Iraqis, as they were not to blame for the deaths.  Her husband said he was OK now and was with his friends on the other side.  Then he said his goodbyes.
 
One evening, several months after my connection with the soldier and his friends, I was watching a documentary movie that had just arrived that day by mail.  I was about half way into watching it when I felt as though I knew a woman in the film.  I told Marti this and she thought that I was confused, that I had mistaken the woman for the soldiers wife we had connected with that Memorial Day, as she looked very similar.

"I know it's not her," I said to Marti.   "I don't know how, but I know this woman!"

A few minutes later the woman's husband appeared in his uniform on the documentary.

"That's one of the guys that came through at Mystic Sisters!"  I exclaimed to Marti.  Marti looked at him, but thought I was still mixed up because the soldier that had talked to his wife all those months ago was Hispanic and short; not at all like the soldier in the film.

"No!"  I said to Marti.  "He's the tall officer, the friend of the husband, that also said hello to that guy's wife."

"Are you sure?"  Marti asked me somewhat incredulously.

"I'm positive!  I know it's him!"  I said.

Just then on the documentary it stated soldier's full name as he stood on stage.  I grabbed a pen and wrote it down.

The next day I looked up the number of the young woman who had attended the group.  She answered and I told her what had happened the day before.  I told her the name of the guy in the documentary and that I recognised him as her husband's friends; his commanding officer who had said hello to her that night.

"That's him," she replied.

Slightly taken aback she continued, "You know, that's really strange.  The day you watched it it was the monthly anniversary of when they died." 

Now I knew why I had recognized the woman in the video, who was the fiancee of the officer.  I figure that he must have been in the room with me as I was watching it! 

I spoke with the wife for a short while longer on the phone and she told me that she had told as many of her husband's friends what he had said to her, regarding not going back to Iraq and harming Iraqis over his death and that of his friends, all in Charley company, and most of them understood.