Father finally passed away
12 upvotes | September 14, 2016 | by RecoveringBPAddict
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Well, he’s gone. Cancer ate him up. The final days were awful with
so much pain. I was able to be there near the end with a final good
bye so there was that. On my last post, I thought long and hard about
what you all said. Frame is coming along and I am really struggling to
avoid “sprinkling a little alpha on it” mentality as I make newb
gains.

The service was really good. I got the local AFB to send an honor
guard out to do their ceremony and present the flag “on behalf of a
grateful nation” to my Mom. In preparing for this, I found his
DD-214. HE FUCKING EARNED THE DFC!! (Distinguished Flying Cross)

He never told anyone. I search frantically and found the citation. He
volunteered to fly a Huey gunship in support of downed American Airmen
who was able to be rescued. His ship came home with 78 holes in it and
not a scratch on him. Reading this was the first time I wept since he
died, and not in front of the wife. I then kept it together the next
few days and into the memorial service. I talked the honor flight into
letting me command it. I am a reserve Major and they were enlisted so
I got my way.

Anyway it went really well, but I began weeping silently when they
started playing taps. FUCK! She finally saw me weep silently. I just
couldn’t hold it back anymore.

So now we are back home across the country and life is supposed to
return to normal. I just feel like shit. She is being all nice and
sweet and asking me to share my grief with her and the temptation is
SO STRONG to do so. But like many have said, I have had my day of
grief and now I need to march on. I need to celebrate my SHIT HOT
GUNSHIP NVA KILLING Dad with what I do with the rest of my life.

But I really feel like shit. He was a lot of greatness that I never
knew about. I think this is a part of what “Alpha” might mean.
Doing great things (like saving a fellow American) for the sake of
doing them instead of what anyone else thinks, but I would have loved
sharing these things with him while he was alive. It turns out that he
had 5 other air medals awarded for just being an awesome pilot.

Now he’s gone and I really miss my Dad.
 
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