Well, crap.

When my unit returned from Afghanistan (Lord, we’re talking a dozen years ago now, how could it have been that long?), a few of us got together in one guy’s place to have a few beers and just talk about stuff. I don’t even remember how the gathering came about, but logically it must have been after some larger get-together, either official or unit party. Anyhow, this one was just me and these other two — one of them I’ve already spoken of, calling him Badger, and I’ll call the other one Corry — and I remember basically nothing that we talked about, just that we were there.

Of the three men in that room, I’m the only one still alive. Corry died and was buried this past week.

We did three combat-zone tours without ever losing anyone to enemy action (fatalities, that is to say; Corry himself was sent home with two Purple Hearts and just enough damage to the vision in one eye to eventually take him out of the Army). The peace has been a lot harder on us. And no, I don’t mean ‘the plight of today’s veterans, society should do something!’; this is plain everyday life, that thing with the 100% mortality rate. It’s just, I was the oldest man in my unit the day I walked in the door, and four guys I served with (that I know of) are gone now, and every one of them younger than me.

It feels weird. It feels …

I don’t know how to describe it. But I feel it.