A tough job

I met with a soldier today who is a 30-year-old staff sergeant crew chief on a medivac blackhawk. His initial complaint is that he and his wife are having trouble. Specifically, he tells me that his wife has always wanted breast enhancement surgery and that one of her co-workers offered to pay for this for her as some type of no interest loan. One can imagine how this soldier feels about the situation and what's worse, is that his wife doesn't seem to think that there would be anything wrong with her accepting the money. He tells me that he has come to realize that there is only one reason men go to "help" wives of deployed soldiers. He goes on to tell me a little about his job here in Iraq. This is his third deployment as a crew chief, which is kind of like a flying mechanic/medic. He tells me of many instances where his "bird" will be called out to pick up wounded American soldiers and how after performing first aid on these guys in the air, he finds out from the CSH (combat support hospital) that they did not survive. He also tells me a lot of horrible events involving Iraqi civilians that his helicopter has picked up. He denies most of the PTSD symptoms but I of course offered to document them for him should he have trouble in the future. I came to find out that this guy's section was stationed with me in Mosul in 2004 and he knows a few of his friends that I personally helped back then. I remember one guy from back in 2004 who had just found out that his wife was cheating on him and was understandably devastated by the news. After working with him for a few weeks he was doing much better and I remember going down to the flight line in Mosul and hanging out with his squad to see what their job was like. Fast forwarding to the present, the staff sergeant tells me that the guy from 2004 is here on this base and he invited me to their BBQ that they have every Friday night. I' think I'll go.