Rest Easy, Doug.
Or An Excerpt
My friend, Major Douglas A. Zembiec, USMC, died nineteen years ago today, killed in combat while fighting in Iraq.
The following is an excerpt from my novel, Once We Pledged Forever. Please grab a copy.
I miss you, Doug. Semper Fi.
A friend’s death is strange. Their loss is immediate, but the impacts are harder to understand. Life continued uninterrupted, beautiful days passed in their course, and the misery that occurred on them didn’t have bearing on anything at all. Steve learned valuable lessons during that process. Life is hard, unfair, and the difficulties encountered seem important to those who feel them, but, despite personal pain, the entire world continued to struggle to attain basic requirements.
First-world problems that a person might order a meal and get it for free if they’re not satisfied and have successfully argued their point, that you can get gasoline when you want, or order a pizza online and change your mind to get something else after you’ve placed the order. Birds sung, a breeze came through the trees, and Arlington Cemetery would inter another tenant.
The world continued turning when his friend died.
Steve didn’t know how else to categorize it.

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A great man and marine 🙏