Apache Pilot Forever

I won’t begin to tell you that I understand what makes each of us choose a certain path in life. I am a pediatric nurse- I never thought I would make it past high school biology. I was a lover of all things living and the thoughts of cutting something up to learn how it worked seemed barbaric. I say this not because of my calling in life but that of my son in law.

He was a Marine who moved to the Army so he could fly. He went through training starting a little later than some, and amazingly even with a retinal detachment that was miraculously repaired he was allowed to get an exemption to fly. Even more amazing was, the craft that he was assigned to was an Apache(the one requiring the most specific instrumentation with a targeting lens).

He was deployed shortly after he became my son in law and was gone for a long nine months to Afghanistan. He had been to Iran prior to having met my daughter. This was difficult but with videos, etc, he and my daughter survived.

He was home and they basically restarted their life together. Even though they both liked children, initially they had decided against having children but as in many things in life those thoughts changed and they decided on a family.

Two weeks before his next deployment, two men from his company that had deployed early were killed where he would be going. His son was born…