Your deep, heartfelt caring for each of the men in your company is evident. I hope for you to find a sense of peace knowing that you've embraced each of those individuals as valued members of your military family. As a female child of a WWII vet, I know how much that family can mean -- even after Dad's death, I've stayed in touch with his old shipmates because I know how important they'd been to him when he was alive. They came from dramatically different backgrounds and led dramatically different lives after the war, but they were always brothers linked by their lives together in the military.
May you gain a measure of peace knowing that you did what you could to make Ben's life better in and out of the military. It sounds like he was lucky to have a commanding officer who recognized his weaknesses were also his strengths, as is true for most of us, and truly appreciated the great guy it sounds like he was. That damn PTSD is more prevalent and more devastating for some than many people reLize or acknowledge. I hope he didn't suffer too horribly from it and it isn't what got him in the end. I hate these damn wars that never should have been fought....Iraq & Vietnam most glaring and obvious among them....and what they've done to so many lives in Vietnam, Iraq and here. Break my heart, and does so specifically for you and Ben.
RIP, Ben. Even those of us who didn't know you are impacted by your death and I hope there weren't things we could have done to help you and didn't. It's a lesson all of us should learn, even if that might have been the case.
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