BlackFive

All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing...

And it is today that here on B5 I say "Fair winds and Following Seas" to Hospital Corpsman Luke Milam of the United States Navy.  Luke was killed on Sept. 25 during a battle between coalition and Taliban forces near the city of Musa Qula, an opium-poppy growing area of Afghanistan.

I have not been to Musa Qula, but I know where it is in Southern Afghanistan and I served with and know men who have fought there. It is still one of the places we get in fights regularly, and by we, I mean all Coalition forces that are fighting in the South.

Luke Milam knew the nature of true evil.  He knew this because he was a senior at Columbine High School.  On April 20, 1999, Milam, a senior at Columbine High School, lost his buddy, Isaiah Shoels.

From the article.....

Milam usually ate lunch in the high school cafeteria and went to the library to study. But on that day, he changed his pattern and left school at lunch time to take care of a sick dog at home.

When he returned, he found chaos at the school and was stopped from re-entering.

"Luke was devastated by the shooting and the loss of his good friend and workout partner Isaiah Shoels," his friend Rusty West said. "After attending Isaiah's memorial service, Luke came home, sat in the dark with his mom and cried, saying that he was done going to memorial services and talking about the shooting," West said at Milam's funeral at Littleton United Methodist Church today.

"He had first blamed himself for his friend's death, for not being in the cafeteria, for not saving people, for not knowing what to do, but had come to the realization that he did not have the skills or the knowledge to have made a difference."

At that point, West said, Luke Milam vowed to go into the Navy, become a corpsman and prepare himself so "he would never be in that position again," West said.

The rest of the article is here:  http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7085142

Having operated with some US Navy medics who are assigned to Force Recon Marines, I know them to be special.  They call their program "BUDs Light" for all the schools they have to attend and all the knowledge they have to keep up on.  They are top caliber and they can work on me any time.

He fought in both theaters and had earned the Bronze Star while in Iraq.  I did not know him, but I am glad to know of him.

Ronald Reagan said "Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference.  The Marines don't have that problem."  No truer a statement has ever been uttered.

My prayers go out to his family, his friends and his buddies who are, most likely, still on patrol somewhere.

Amen....