that's what i did. I actually bought two because i didn't know about this model and i prioritize buying things that support causes i care about. Thank you for donating to the wounded warrior foundation, they do much good.
I lost many good friends in the sandbox. Especially miss a very close friend that i lost in Falluja, Lance Corporal Ramon Ortega RIP.
Ramon was a kid who was lost, about to end up deep in a gang in San Francisco when his uncle sent him to join the Marines.
As Ramon told me, Marines straightened me out. I met him as he was preparing to go to college, he had about a year left before he was discharged from the Marines and he was determined to make it into college. Smart kid, just born in a bad neighborhood but he had a bright future ahead. He pushed me hard at the gym with weights and i pushed him hard with his brain studying in the evenings.
9/11 happened and the world changed. For a while immediately following 9/11 he shared that he was manning a 50cal mounted on top of a Humvee sitting on bay bridge in San Francisco in case someone came with a truck bomb on the bridge (what a crazy time that was). It was all alert and a crazy era, we only once or twice chatted in those months.
He rang me a few months later to share that he was going overseas. couldn't tell me where. He re-enlisted with the marines in his last year. Went back to Iraq a second time. Never came home. I learned he died in Fallujah. Hit me hard, he was 19. I've lost lots of other friends since in Iraq and Afghanistan but Ramon was first. A close family friend and both me and my wife worked hard on helping him prepping for his dreams of graduating college and living just a normal family life.
I adopted his unit. Sent them over the years goodie bags. They sent me pics and messages from where they where deployed. Its tapered down now as time has passed by, i'm not as connected to his unit as i once was. tough times. I gave a guy in his unit my old car when he discharged, he was going to the police academy and needed a car (it was a nice car but not a really valuable car as it was 10 years old). He is in the sheriffs department in a county not too far from where i live now, has a kid and a family. At least some made it out.
I try to support veterans in whichever way i can.
