Memorial Day

Rick Eaton was a friend of mine.

Not my best friend, but a friend nonetheless.

A consummate counterintelligence professional, as a defense contractor Rick literally wrote the Army's book on tactical human intelligence (HUMINT) operations. He was a fantastic training resource as our counterintelligence company prepared for and deployed to war.

As a mobilized reservist, Rick flew all the way back from a work assignment in South Korea (a country he loved) to rejoin the battalion and the (as yet un-nicknamed) Bandits in time for the pre-deployment train-up at Fort Dix. That was the farthest anyone in our unit had to travel when the word went out to grab your gear and report to home station.

Until I heard he'd flown all the way from South Korea, I'd secretly hoped that my return from an overseas FSO assignment had won me the dubious honor of having had to travel the furthest to report in.

Without telling tales out of school, Rick was no angel. He worked hard and played harder. He was a good "wingman" during off-duty hours. Coming from a very respectable (even venerable) Connecticut family, I expect his being a noncom caused his parents a few raised eyebrows from the neighbors, as it almost certainly has mine. To say nothing of grey hairs. I remember being really pissed off at him one time at Fort Gordon, around oh-dark-thirty, under circumstances that now seem trivial.

There is a reason there's a barstool in a certain Crystal City sports bar dedicated to Rick. I've made it my mission, whenever I'm back home, to go by there and hoist one in his honor.

Rick and a Tactical HUMINT Team (THT) were detached from Bandit Company during our May-June 2003 stay at TAA Hound and went off to support the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Brave Rifles) at Ar-Ramadi. A couple of months later we got the sad news that Rick had been found, already dead, in his cot one morning. Apparently natural causes, given that it was mid-August (and nothing does justice when attempting to describe Iraq in August), he'd been working himself past exhaustion; dying from heat exhaustion is not merely an abstract concept in these circumstances.

I don't know what the official cause of death was ever determined to have been. Natural causes or not, Rick died serving his country, a country he loved in a way he'd probably have been too shy to verbalize (and he was not a shy man), doing the work he'd spent nearly two decades getting good at. I'm sure he had a much better exit planned for departing this mortal coil, one which would have taken him decades longer and involved underdressed ladies of uncertain virtue. He was a soldier's soldier, after all.

The battalion commander, chaplain, and command sergeant major made the trip out from battalion headquarters at BIAP to attend the memorial service Bandit Company had for Rick. The chaplain did it right. The now-too-familiar display of a soldier's boots, helmet, dogtags, and rifle were prepared for the occasion. I still have the American flag, I think we used my helmet since it had the appropriate rank insignia, and they may even have been my boots as well. I didn't mind, he'd have done it for me.