Ambiguous Casey

I didn’t know it at the time, of course.

He called me late in the afternoon and apologized for not being able to call me for the past few days. I accepted his apology, it wasn’t necessary, he was fighting in a war after all. He wished me a Happy Valentines Day because he felt it would be a while before he could call again. We got to talk for a while that day which was extremely rare. This was February 13, 2006, our Marines were still fighting hard in Ramadi at that time. I will never forget hearing laughter and his obscenities to his Marines. He told me they had all been making fun of him for being the old man of the unit. His birthday would be in two weeks, at 22 years old he would officially be the oldest enlisted Marine in their group. I laughed at him too, he was 9 days older than me and that made him MY old man.

That was all we talked about Matt that day. As usual he begged me to talk about me and my pregnancy, he liked to hear about his girls.

Our conversation was cut off that day by the poor signal on the satellite phone. He called back and all he was able to say is “I love y’all”.

I wish I could remember everything about that conversation, but with time most of my memories have faded. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him in some way or another, it’s even stronger this time of year.

Matthew passed away on February 18, 2006 he wasn’t found until February 19. That was 7 days before his 22nd birthday, which ended up being the day I buried him. Our daughter was born three weeks later.