(S8) - PT 2 - Memorial Day

[adam2552]

As a veteran, Memorial Day has recently held a special significance to me. As such, I would like to step out of character her and remember one of my friends who gave his life in service of this country. SSG Jason Reeves was the first person I met when I landed in Germany at my new duty station. He picked me up from the Frankfurt airport in his personally owned vehicle and drove me the three plus hours south towards Hohenfels where I would now be stationed. SSG Reeves was full of energy despite the over six hour round trip he had to make just to pick me up. During the car trip, we talked about a lot of different topics from politics to beer drinking in Germany. It was refreshing to meet someone so outgoing and friendly upon me first setting foot in a foreign country. Through the next couple months he would be my mentor. He showed me around the base and the best places to go off the base. He drove me to my appointments until I was able to buy my own car. And while he outranked me, we still were friends and had a mutual respect for each other. There was a small deployment coming up that an operations group needed just two of our interrogators for. SSG Reeves quickly volunteered for the deployment. As he was preparing for the deployment, I unfortunately saw less and less of him. When he deployed, he had little means of contact back to our base. We would hear from him maybe twice per month. However, on December 5th, 2010 we would hear the worst news. SSG Reeves was killed by a suicide bomber in a market in Gardez, Afghanistan. The other soldier from our unit that was with him was also critically injured, but survived the blast. It was not until he came back and told the story of what happened, that we truly learned of SSG Reeves’s heroism. When the suicide bomber exposed his vest, SSG Reeves hugged the bomber to absorb the majority of the blast. This cost SSG Reeves his life, but saved countless others. He died how he lived, looking out for other people, putting others before himself. He is a true hero and I am lucky to have had the chance to call him my friend.