Once in Iraq, my soldier son got hit in the face with a chunk of flying asphalt. The military transport in front of his took the brunt of the blast.
“I’m okay,” he said in a phone call later. “Just some cuts.”
Invincible youth, you know.
Once, he lost his hearing—about 30%—because his work put him near frequent explosions.
He dismissed it, “Mom, everyone comes back with hearing loss.”
Once, he lost a friend, Army Spec. Darryl Wardlaw Linder. The obituary said Linder “died in Baqubah, Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device.”
That one was hard to shake off.
Sometime later when he was home on leave, my son stayed up late one night after everyone else had gone to bed. Alone, in the dark and quiet, his memory called up Linder’s vivid laugh, and these words: “I’ll see you when we all get back!”
He had every reason to believe Linder. Linder was older and more experienced in this battle business. He had deployed before. He spoke knowledgeably. He took care.
Sleep-deprived or hungry: no excuses
But Linder’s obit favored brevity. It cheated readers from knowing about his high spirits and charisma. It cheated them from knowing that he rarely held grudges and often turned adversaries into friends.
Looking at it, readers wouldn’t know that Linder worked hard and conscientiously. “No task too tough, no detail missed,” my son recalled. “Ward didn’t shy away from doing the job right, regardless of sleep deprivation or hunger.”
The obit failed to mention Linder’s tenacity mixed with humor and his laughter. It didn’t tell about that time he refused to follow an over-zealous squad leader . . .
As my son told it later:
“In the heat of the moment, the squad leader blindly tore around a corner without ‘popping’ the corner, that is, going barrel first. Linder refused to follow. When the furious squad leader returned and yelled, ‘What are you waiting for?’ Linder laughed: ‘You!’”
The team always properly “popped” corners barrel first after that.
The dirt didn’t seem so dirty working with Linder
The obit didn’t talk about Linder’s self-deprecating humor, his knack for putting others first, or his relentless diligence. One could learn by watching Linder.
Again, from my son:
“If track needed to be broken, Ward was your man. If road wheels needed changing, Ward was up for the task. He worked cheerfully while he mucked about and brought others along in the work, too. Somehow, working with him, the dirt didn’t seem so dirty … ‘Oh, what a time we shall have when we get back!’ he’d say. ‘I’ll buy the first beer, and you had better keep me from my own stupidity . . . I don’t know how many it’ll take!’”
They all laughed.
Good to See Ya!
Halfway through their deployment, Linder left the dismounted squad and joined a Bradley crew.
In one early morning street ambush, the “ground-pounders” were relieved to see Linder and his team roar out of the darkness amid muzzle flashes to pull them out. When all were accounted for safe and sound, Linder simply said, “Good to see ya!”
That day we “rolled out”
Days of heated engagements passed. My son’s writing gave the account:
“There was plenty of fighting left in Baq’uba, and we were in the thick of it. One day we rolled out on a month-long operation, and it was doubtful whether or not the dismounts would see much of the crews during the time. Everybody had their own job to do, and the Bradleys would be working in shifts, constantly trading off maintenance and mission. As he had done numerous times before, Ward prepared his kit the night prior. On mission day, the morning of, he shouldered his fighting load, picked up his weapon, and turned his head over his shoulder. We exchanged smiles as he walked out the door.”
“I’ll see you when we all get back,” he said.
“I’ll see you when I see you,” I replied.
But Linder, the man to watch, didn’t come back. He was 23. And, modern warfare being what it is, the enemy captured the explosion on video and posted it online so Linder’s battle buddies–my son among them–could see over and over again the blast took their friend’s life.
.Photos from top: (1) Sgt. Armando Monroig, 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, Tikrit, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; (2) Explosion, Army photo by Master Sgt. Johancharles Van Boers, public domain (3). IED by Andy Dunaway, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; (4) Team by http://www.army.mil/-images/2007/03/19/3416/army.mil-2007-03-19-132938.jpg, public domain; (5). Bradley: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Timothy Kingston, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; (6) Memorial Day – Fallen Warrior Memorial by Maryland National Guard is licensed under CC BY 2.
Morris Sampler 
