Sad News........

[cougarfreak]

I had a student last semester, who was a pretty typical student. One week she missed a couple of days, and when she came back, she was pissed off at the world and withdrawn. I spoke with her about it one day, and she told me her older brother had been sent to Afghanistan, and she was upset about it. Today I found out her brother had been killed yesterday in Afghanistan. Life sucks, and I know it'll be very, very hard on her. :(

[markprior22]

Damn...sorry to hear this. I am guilty of hearing the death numbers and "feeling bad" and doing the "support our troops" thing but I think I don't tend to think about exactly what sacrifices are being made because I don't know anyone personally who has been deployed. It's ok to say "freedom isn't free" until it's your son, daughter, brother, sister, parent, friend who is asked to make that sacrifice. I had a brother die unexpectedly when I was 9 and he was 21. While her brother was deployed, and I'm sure the family worried, it still has to be somewhat unexpected because you think it will be the other guy. I hope she is able to get some help (i.e. therapy) so this doesn't hold her down forever.

[Sun Tzu]

Bummer for your student.

[BYU 14]

Terrible news, so sorry for your student and that this had to hit so close to home for you as well. God I wish we could wrap things up over there and bring our young men and women home.

[JPhillips]

Sorry to hear. Terrible waste of a young life.

[Flasch186]

:(

[MizzouRah]

Very sad... :(

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Damn. God bless him, his family, and every American in harm's way. :(

[FBPro]

Really tough to bear for her, I hope she can handle the burden of this and respond in a positive way.

[terpkristin]

How awful. I really hope that we can find a way to gracefully end our involvement over in Afghanistan and bring our troops home.

There was a time, when I was in college and just after college, that I would watch the Sunday morning gasbags on ABC (This Week). At the end of the show, they'd do an "In Memoriam" bit where they'd list out the service men and women who had died in the past week--it was morbid, but I had a lot of friends in the military, and I always forced myself to watch to make sure that nobody I knew had been killed in action. I'm glad that most of my friends that were in have now gotten out (and those that are still in, I'd hear about it if they were killed in action).

I hope your student is able to get the help she's definitely going to need.

/tk