Mary Gauthier made me cry out loud today.

I just listened to "Soldiering On" and "The War After the War" from the album Rifles and Rosary Beads

I wept.

I am intermittently tearing up as I type this post...

Now I'm torn - I want that album and at the same time I am afraid to listen to anymore of it.

I deployed three times in my career - and as I've said elsewhere on this board I do not count myself as a combat vet.

I fixed gear. I was an electronics technician and as a Master Sergeant managed a repair/support shop in my last two deployments for an Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron.

We got the wounded out of 1st echelon treatment and back to theater or regional care facilities - Or over the ocean to Walter Reed if need be.

So I never kicked in a door or walked a patrol. I never even chambered a round in my rifle.

I (and my two man team) flew around the theater fixing radios, satellite terminals, oxygen storage & delivery systems, generators and other support gear for Aeromed Teams scattered around SWA the Horn of Africa and central Asia

But it turns out that I lost three friends over there, it just took differing lengths of time before death claimed them.

My three friends, well they all took their own lives in the years since I retired from the service.

Those two Mary Gauthier songs moved me in a way that I can't really explain or even grasp at this moment.

You know it hit you hard when you can't even decide if saying "thank you" or "fuck you" most matches your emotions...