Team,
I hope that this note finds you well. I apologize for not getting this update out earlier, however as much I hate to admit it, after our shoot yesterday I’m moving a little slowly today. But we’ve had a great week, with a lot of good things to report.
This week we celebrated the Marine Corps Birthday and Veterans day. A time when America remembers those who served and still stand among us. For us, this was driven home again through our experiences with those we hold dear.
It was a busy week for us. Not only did we have to get ready for our fundraiser, but we also had “1/5 Family” business to attend to. The retirement of our dear friend GYSGT. Thomas Praxedes.
For those of you who may not have heard the story, Thomas was our son’s recruiter. Following our son’s death, Thomas felt guilty. At our son’s viewing, he expressed his sorrow. We were civil, but not warm. With everything else going on, it was the best we could do.
A few months later at Donald’s Battalion Memorial, following the ceremony, I watched as Thomas tried to go and speak to my wife, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. As he started to leave, I spoke to him and he told me how guilty he felt about our son’s death. I asked him if my son had fulfilled all his duties as a Marine and a man. He responded that he did. I told him he had nothing to feel guilty about.
We have been close since.
A little while later, Donald’s unit prepared to go back to Afghanistan. One day Thomas called to tell me that he had volunteered to go back as the Platoon Staff Sergeant for our son’s Platoon, 2 Alpha. Some people are defined by their words, others by their actions. With that action, Thomas made himself a part of our family.
On Friday, he ended 17 years of honorable service in the United States Marine Corps. Some people try to gauge people by their history and their accomplishments, you can tell who Thomas was by the men who came to see him begin the next chapter of his life.
There were Marines from 3/1 who he fought with in Fallujah and Haditha and there were the Marines from 1/5. I could spend a couple of pages listing all of them and our relationships, but I won’t. But there were Marines and Marine vets who traveled the length and breadth of our Nation to wish our friend farewell and following seas.
We wish Thomas, his wife Roxanne and their family much love and hope for their future happiness in the next chapter of their lives. Thomas has certainly earned it.
The next morning, we’re up at 2:30 AM and we’re off to our event.
I’m always a little nervous on shoot days. For some reason, with all the things going on in our Nation, I’m a little more so. Even though we’ve gone through the lists repeatedly, we’ve organized, we’ve counted, we’ve loaded the truck, the minute I get behind the wheel, I ask myself “what am I forgetting.”
We arrive at the Range at 6AM, our volunteers are there to help us. It moves quickly. The pop-ups get built, the targets placed, the registration and scoring stations staged up, the firearms uncased. We go through the safety procedures again (even though most of our volunteers have been with us for close to 10 shoots), final positions are assigned and at 8AM, the first shots go downrange.
For this event, instead of “first come, first serve” we scheduled all the shooting times in advance. We limited the number of attendees and the event sold out. Every 20 minutes a new group checked in, received their targets and were taken to the firing line, it moves like clockwork.
The issues experienced are minor. A battery in a red-dot needs to be replaced. A hand grip needs tightening, a spring cap needs to be torqued down. There are no firearm failures, there are no issues on the line. The groups cycle through the line and off to wherever they’re going. For an event involving 10 firearms and 7,500 rounds of ammunition it was pretty uneventful.
Of course, there were a couple of exceptions.
One of our guests was the Commander of the 1st Marine Division. We’ve been friends with their family since he commanded the 5th Marine Regiment. His wife signed him up kidding him that just because he no longer needed to do rifle and pistol re-qualifications didn’t mean he could let his skills atrophy. She didn’t need to worry.
Our friend shot with a group of Orange County and LA Sherriff’s who came to play. Out of a possible score of 940, they were consistently scoring between 770 and 800. What that means is that between 77 and 80 of their 94 shots landed in the 10 ring or bullseye of the target.
As they got ready to shoot I spoke to their ring-leader and kidded him about bringing a group of “ringers”. He held up his hand to stop me, pointed at our friend and said; “Don’t talk to me about ringers, we shot with THAT guy”.
Later I walked up to the scoring table, our friend puts up an 860 out of a possible 940. The next person to him is 50 points away.
But my favorite was a friend of ours asked if he could bring his Dad, a retired Marine Non-com to shoot. He told me “he’s a little older but he should be OK.” They show up and his Dad goes through the course. He shoots 45’s and 9MM’s. He throws rounds downrange with all the rifles including our cannon, the 716 which shoots a 30 caliber round.
At the end of it, he shows me his target and I joke with him, “pretty good for a youngster’, he tells me he’s 94 years old.
You can’t make this stuff up.
As always, the shoot ends, we pack up. We load the truck while the scorers keep crunching numbers. In fact, they’re doing it for about an hour after we leave.
We get home and unload the truck and take it back to UHAUL. I take my boots off and collapse onto the couch. Carla and I joke that we may be getting too old for this.
A little later, we receive a note from a young Soldier in Afghanistan. It reads:
“To Whom this may Concern,
This is probably not the primary spot that you were looking for a response but the link did not work to respond so I’m using email as my way to say thanks.
Thank you for going out of your way to support the troops. All the little contributions or messages do truly mean something to soldiers. It’s easy to assume that this is something that organizations or companies do to gain reputation but I don’t see it that way. I see people who took time to think about the soldiers away from home serving our great nation. People who support individuals willing to sacrifice anything under our flag. I am always thankful to live in a country that respects what we do because it’s easy to take the every day person’s support for granted. Thank you.
This is my first tour. Arriving into country is nerve racking. All you can think about is making sure you’re doing everything you can to contribute. A couple days into country I received these pairs of socks from you guys. It’s crazy to think about how happy a few pairs of socks made me. It gave me a reminder that there is people supporting us and care for us. I am thankful for the nice little care package and so are my buddies.”
I share it with my wife and we both smile. Maybe we’ll keep doing it a while longer.
Thanks for joining us in our position in this fight!
Jim Hogan
In memory of our son, LCPL Donald Hogan
Posthumously awarded the Navy Cross
KIA 8/26/2009 Nawa, Afghanistan
We honor his memory by caring for Americans wherever they serve in harm’s way