by Cody Osborn

Created on: November 13, 2008

It seems that my whole life I've been surrounded by this unavoidable thing called death.

From just after my eight birthday with the loss of my mother. To losing one of my best friends my junior year of high school to a drunk driver the night before her graduation. Death has seemed to surround me. It also seems that the more close friends and family I had lost that the less it phased me.

I joined the Army the December after my 18th birthday and was stationed in South Korea after completing boot camp and my job training. That year I lost my uncle Gary and my command wouldn't let me come home because he wasn't imediate family. Even though he was my mothers brother and I was close to him, it still didn't phase me. Later on that year I also lost my great grandmother and yet again my command wouldn't permit me to come home for the funeral. There was one person that was my crying shoulder in all of my loss that year and he would be my Team Leader, Sgt. J. This was the guy that was always there to help his soldiers in their times of need. He was always there to help square away his soldiers. This was a guy that his own problems and his own needs were aways farther away from his mind than those of his soldiers. Sgt. J was an exemplary model of a leader, he always put his subordinates above himself.

After a year in Korea I was re-assigned to 1st Calvary Division in Texas, and Sgt. J was assigned to another unit in Germany. At my unit in Texas from day one we were training and training to get ready to deploy to Iraq the following November. After a year and two months of training it was finally time to "ruck up" and deploy.

Upon our arival in Kuait I was informed that my grandfather had passed away, and yet again, not imediate family, no permission to go home. Which this time didn't bother me too much because I was called by my country to do a job, and I was there to do my job to the best of my ability, no matter what was going on back at home. After two weeks in Kuait after some final preperations it was time to move north into Iraq.

Yet again, after only being in Iraq for one week I was told by my command that my grandmother had passed away this time, and again, not imediate family, no home leave. This death was the first in more than 4 years to actually phase me, I almost fell apart. I was left off our first few missions because my Squad Leader cared about his soldiers too and didn't think i needed the stress of combat right away. I was thankful for this because it gave

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