His body was blown to bits.

The Marine had been on top of the armored vehicle. At the moment he was handing down his equipment to his Lieutenant, one of the grenades got caught on a clip and detonated. Seconds later the Marine’s life was over and the surviving Lieutenant’s life forever changed by the accident.

Although the Lieutenant suffered minor injuries the scars of that accident, which included feeling partially responsible for the death, would stay with him forever. It seemed the Lieutenant had failed to correctly secure his gear.

The dead Marine had survived months in the desert during Desert Shield as well as the attack on Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. He was merely months away from discharge and had plans to become a minister. As one of the more popular Marines in his unit, his peers were left seething at the Lieutenant’s negligence.

I heard later that the fallen marine’s parents could not get beyond the circumstances surrounding their son’s death. They were prepared to live with the fact that their son might die gloriously on the battlefield ins service to his country, but not by the random grenade of a fellow Marine’s negligence.

At the time, I could only imagine how those parents must have suffered from the tragedy of that random, senseless accident. I was 23 when it happened. Single with no children. With no perspective or personal experience, I had no idea what would have gone through their minds and hearts.

Today I have six kids, two of which are teenage daughters. I can finally relate to those parents and how they must have felt upon hearing how their son had died. When I look at my daughters, I see them through the totality of their lives thus far: as my babies, toddlers, young children and now…young women. I see them for who they have become but I never forget who they were. I also, at times, see the direction in life they have yet to take.

I think it must be the loss of that futuristic vision that is so painful. The loss of their son was so intolerable because he would never marry, have a family, hold a baby, or have grandchildren. His life, and future life, were destroyed in an instant. No amount of compensation or could ever recoup or console that loss.

Whenever I run into my former comrades, I ask them about their kids. Its the rare occasion when one of their kids is in the military. Having lived the effects of war watching young men dying in battle, we who have served tend to go the distance (consciously or unconsciously) in laying the groundwork for heading off such loss of our own children.

I lost contact with the Lieutenant years ago. But I imagine that tragic death stays with him every day. It is important in life to move ahead and press on but the reality is much more difficult. We have regrets and tragedies that befall us all. How we live with them shapes who we become. Hopefully, as Holocaust survivor and author Viktor Frankl writes in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning“…we bring meaning to the seemingly senseless and incomprehensible occurrences in our lives which then allows us to move forward.

In the last scene of the movie “Saving Private Ryan‘, Ryan turns to his wife and asks her to tell him that he is a good man. He needed to know the person he had become was worthy of all the sacrifices that his comrades made for him.

I pray that the Lieutenant was able to find such meaning and moved on to live life as a better man.

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