Stay Safe: Chapter Twenty-Five
What follows is a chapter from "Stay Safe: Life After Loss," a book that I wrote following the death of my brother, Robert James Reeves. Rob, only 14-months younger than me and 32 years old at the time of his death, was a Navy SEAL on the prestigious SEAL Team 6. On August 6, 2011, while on a mission in Afghanistan, he and too many of his teammates and other servicemen, lost their lives when their helicopter was shot down by enemy fire. It was the single largest loss of American life in the Afghan war. And because of the high profile nature of this event–being on the cusp of the Bin Laden mission and the number of those lost–my dad and I were part of many, many memorials and events, and the recipients of much outreach, and the point of contact for all those wanting to do something in Rob’s memory. This book chronicles the first month after his death. I am releasing a chapter a day starting August 5th as we mark the fourth anniversary of life without him.
Aggression
Sunday, Dad and I traveled to Virginia Beach for a week of burials, memorial events and sorting through Rob’s personal business. The smallness of the Shreveport airport was unfamiliar to me; I hadn’t flown from that airport since I was in high school. I’ve since come to believe that they send the dying planes to this airport for their final flights. Our travel now proved to be a no different experience. I think they had one girl checking passengers in, accepting tickets and pushing the plane away from the gate. Our flight was delayed and all of us had to re-routed. We all made it, but just barely after sprinting through the Atlanta airport, which brought Dad teetering on the edge of sanity.Though we arrived late, Jerritt was waiting for us at the airport and led us to the the ocean-front hotel where we would spend the week.We ended up meeting K. and her mom met for dinner. Her brother-in-law, T., and another Navy guy, Sp.—the one we met at the Dignified Transfer of remains, who we initially thought was nice—joined later on. It turns out that Sp. had been living in Rob’s house for the past several months as he was separated from his wife. The guys looked worn out. It has been a week since we saw them last and they had been getting on a plane everyday to go to another service or funeral. I felt bad for them, but I felt bad for us, too. I was struggling with my feelings as my tendency was to be tremendously selfish. But we sat there and listened to their tales and made idle conversation.The night wasn’t without tension, though. T. had a confrontation with another restaurant patron that almost led to brawl in front of the restaurant. I mean, really? Supposedly T. told a kid waiting for in line in the restroom to just pee in the sink. The kid went back to his table and told his dad what was said. The dad came over to our table to confront T. about it. T. was actually in his dress blue uniform. This other guy had serious balls to approach a Navy guy in dress blues and verbally attack him. They took their “conversation” outside. It ended without a punch thrown, but nonetheless, was ridiculous. I’ve never had friends that were aggressive and got into physicial fights, especially as an adult. Other than Dad and me, everyone at the table treated this event as if it happened all the time. Though Rob was a Navy SEAL and had to be aggressive when working, he never showed aggression outside of work. He was more of a peacekeeper. He was the kind of guy that would rather end a disagreement with a joke and laughter than throw a punch. I was surprised to learn that the people he spent so much time with would take a verbal confrontation to a physical one so quickly. It made me uncomfortable the rest of the night.It was a long travel day and ended weirdly with the mash-up of Rob’s real family and his Virginia Beach family at dinner, sans the glue that could hold us together: Rob. It felt like an awkward family dinner where everyone just wanted to go home. At least that was how I felt. With K.’s sister and her family living in Virginia Beach, Rob and K. spent a lot of time with them. Rob was known as “Uncle Bobby” to K.’s niece. And Rob had traveled to K.’s hometown several times and knew her parents well, though we had only met them a couple of weeks prior at the Dignified Transfer. They knew one side of Rob and I knew another. They shared stories of Rob playing with K.’s younger siblings and all her nieces and nephews, how great he was with the kids and always making them laugh. Because there are no kids in our family, Dad and I didn’t have those memories of Rob. My Rob made me laugh, told stories of his adventures, was the best puzzle assembler for the annual Christmas puzzle we always worked on as a family and was someone I could always talk to about technology and would actually understand what I was saying. Of course he was the same Rob to all of us, but we held different memories and different experiences. It was hard to make conversation beyond telling stories about Rob.Dad and I stumbled back to our hotel for the first night of what would be a long week.
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