Notification

What do you get when you take a Colonel, Major, and Chaplain together?

The beginning of a bad joke?

Or the end of someone's world?


My Dad just called. He started the call by telling me that he needed to "clean out his drawers."

He's home recovering from some eye surgery (he's fine), when the doorbell rings. He opens the door, and standing there, in full dress uniforms, are an USAF Colonel, USAF Major, and USAF Chaplain. As anyone connected to the military will recognize, they are a Casualty Notification Team.

[What's a Casualty Notification Team? These are the individuals, always two officers and a chaplain, who have been specially trained to deliver death notifications to a servicemember's next of kin.]

As he said (and he's not prone to saying often), his first thought was, "Oh, shit." Dad used to be a Sergeant Major... he knows. And here it is that I've recently been in the hospital, plus just being a Soldier in general.

It wasn't a mistake. Sadly, his next door neighbor is about to receive some very sad news that her only daughter is gone. She wasn't home, but Dad has called her home on the pretext that he needs help recovering from the surgery.

I imagine that Dad has just gone through the experience of being notified as closely as possible without it actually being me.

Even Ellicia is familiar with the idea that if you see officers and a chaplain in dress uniform...


And our condolences to the neighbor.