I just got this news about a friend of mine who is a Marine officer:
He was injured in an ambush in Iraq on New Years Day, and has lost his right hand and part of the forearm, with potential for loss of the elbow joint. Currently he’s in Landstuhl Hospital in Germany, and we’re hopeful he’ll be headed to Bethesda on Wednesday and subsequently to Duke where a leading specialist in muscle reconstruction and limb salvage has agreed to operate. I asked him if he was feeling bummed and he replied that he was just feeling lucky to be alive, since the guy standing next to him is dead.
His wife is in med school and they have an infant child. Every few days I have been thinking of him and am shocked every time to picture him there in what must be the most dangerous place in the world right now. (Except near the Indian Ocean last month. Talk about the end times…) I have been very afraid that he was going to die, so this dismemberment is actually a relief to me! How fucked up is that?
In other bad news, my uncle passed away 2 days ago after a long battle with cancer, and my stepfather has just been diagnosed. Let’s hope we are just getting 2005’s death and destruction out of the way early. From now on it’ll be smooth sailing… or else maybe we’ll never see 2006 (or wish we hadn’t).