My old army buddy, Scott

[Big Frank]

My old army buddy, Scott, AKA Sarge, died a week ago. He was my roommate in Germany 43 years ago, back when it was West Germany. I believe his son had his respirator unhooked at 1 or 2 in the afternoon, but he was still on oxygen. His girlfriend called me up and said he died at 8:55 pm. I didn't get the message until Tuesday because I went to bed when it was still daylight. Scott had several problems beginning last summer. The capillaries in his hands and feet burst after the doctors took him off some of his meds, and his hands and feet turned black. He had some fingers and half a leg amputated, and half a foot when they went to cut some toes off the other foot. Then they cut half of that leg off too. They just kept whittling away at him. He seemed to be getting better and bought a left-handed guitar since he still had enough fingers to play left-handed. But he seemed to be getting better then suddenly got worse when he was at physical therapy. His girlfriend got his driver's license renewed by mail. I said something about how his height was listed on it. Did it say his height was 4'6" now? He would have laughed about that if he wasn't already in a coma and put on a respirator. Then he got a bedsore on his butt so bad the bone was exposed. Then he went septic and it was all downhill from there. They should have pulled the plug on him sooner, the doctors wanted to because he was beyond hope, but his son told his girlfriend he wanted to wait 2 more weeks. That was close to 2 months ago, but I'm not exactly sure how long it was. So now, instead of having 2 best friends, one who knew me way back when, and one who knows the person I am now, I'm down to one best friend. And not many other friends. There isn't going to be a memorial or anything. I wouldn't be able to make it if there was. It's about a 15 hour round trip and I start to cramp up after a couple hours behind the wheel.

[alfsauve]

So sorry.

[Majer]

My condolences to you and his family.

[Big Frank]

Thanks, guys. I don't have any friends left from my army days or my childhood. The circle is getting smaller.

[Jim Kennedy-ar154me]

I am sorry for your loss.

It seems the older we get, the more we have these losses.

BTDT.

[Sponsor]

[Rastus]

Very sorry to hear someone that close to you has passed on.

[Big Frank]

My mom died in December, but she was 102 years old and in poor health, so it wasn't unexpected. Scott was 384 days older than me, born the same month, a year and 19 days earlier than me. And he was in better overall health than I am until things went bad. I'm starting to think that if you have anything collectable, you may as well sell it, take the money and do something fun with it while you still can. At least if you're like me and have no heirs. If I go broke the day I die, I'll know that I timed it right.

[Rastus]

Naw...if you go into debt before the credit card payments, rent and other loans come due...then you timed it better...

[Big Frank]

I know someone who got new credit cards to pay off the old credit cards then declared bankruptcy because she couldn't pay them off. But what do you expect from a crazy cat lady who needs to be medicated? Fiscal responsibility? As long as she gets free food from the food bank, and anything else she needs from her boyfriend, she'll get by.

[Big Frank]

I emailed one of me an Scott's old roommates, D in Bay City, MI, and let him know what happened. I heard back from him today. I don't know how to get hold of our other roommate, J, but I don't think anyone wanted to keep in touch with him anyway. I emailed one of our old platoon sergeants last month, but never got a reply. He's 77 years old if he's still alive, but he should have died when both of his parachutes failed when he doing a demonstration with the Golden Knights (United States Army Parachute Team). Actually 3 parachutes failed, because he had a 3rd one that was intentionally rigged to be a streamer instead of the canopy opening. He cut it away and popped his main chute which didn't work. So he cut it away and popped his secondary chute and it failed too. It slowed him down enough not to kill him when it broke most of the bones in his body. He went from Airborne to Chairborne, and was on borrowed time way before I met him, 40+ years ago. I'll try sending him another email, but the address may not be current. Here's a picture of him I found online. It looks like it's when he was in Vietnam.