The internet is a strange thing for a variety of reasons, but the biggest for me is that you can become close to people you haven’t met, and indeed may never meet. This is the best and worst thing about this sort of communication.
I am a card-carrying fan of The West Wing, as most of my friends are probably sick of hearing about. I like the show enough that I post on a fairly regular basis to a message board, dissecting the highlights of each episode. I even, to my everlasting chagrin, read fan fiction occasionally. It is truly a sickness.
One of the true regulars on this board is a Lt. Colonel in the Army reserves, a gentleman using the handle TonyS. There are a lot of intelligent people who post to the board (found at Testytoads), but I’ve yet to find someone who can explain military and historical matters in a way that makes me realize how ill-informed I truly am. Many, many times there have been posts (some of them by me) saying something to the effect of, "Maybe TonyS can explain this, but I don’t understand ________." And generally he did just that. While I didn’t always agree with his conclusions, I’ve never seen someone who was so easily able to balance making his point with maintaining a profoundly respectful, openminded tone.
TonyS’ recent posts were coming to us from Kuwait, where he was stationed as a Public Affairs officer. Always, his words expressed a tone of frustration and concern with the lack of planning that seemed to be the hallmark of US policy in the region. He cited Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s decision to close the Peacekeeping Institute, saying "We don’t do peacekeeping."
On August 27, Lt. Colonel Anthony Sherman, died in a medical clinic in Kuwait. He was the victim of a heart attack despite being an accomplished triathelete and marathoner. He is survived by his wife and 8 year old son.
I had absolutely no private contact with TonyS. I never sent him an email or discussed family, friends, work, or any of those things that would have told me something meaningful about him. We replied to the same message board, that’s all, and when he quoted one of my posts I felt a strange sense of pride. I’m a smart guy, but not in the areas he was. I find, oddly, that I miss him.
The last message to the board that I saw from TonyS ended this way:
"…this is why I hesitate for you to start mailing us stuff. It takes many weeks to get here – mail is still terrible here – and we may either be someplace else by the time it gets here or (Inshallah) we will be ready to catch the freedom bird. We just don’t know. That song ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas’ is becoming more and more prescient … and poignant."
It seems that in this he was correct, but not in any way I would have hoped. He made me, and a lot of other people, a little smarter. That’s no kind of epitaph, but it’s the best I can do.
Except perhaps to say this. There’s a quote I’ve heard attributed to Mark Twain that reminds me of Tony. "Patriotism means being loyal to one’s country always and one’s government when it deserves it."
