Today-Tomorrow-Everyday
I'm going to remember Ssgt Michael Ruoff and Sgt Mathew Tallman today. Ruoff was a fellow tanker in the late 90's. He was a gunner on our crew. When living on a tank for weeks on in you really get to know peaple and I really liked him. We spent a lot of time together and I remember his laugh and how he would all ways volunteer to go out and set up OP's and loved MOUT and urban training because we believed he was a closet 11B! Which is how he died. With no tanks he was attached to an infantry unit in Iraq and got to do all the boots on the ground stuff that he couldn't do in the confines of a tank. He was shot while exiting a building he had just cleared.
Tallman was a fellow Blackhawk crewchief in my platoon at Fort Polk, I had changed my MOS when I reinlisted, and had the pleasure of crewing with Tallman for countless hours dropping scouts off all hours of the night in the clearings of the forest training areas of Fort Polk, he was married but still he came to the barracks to drink and hang out some weekends, I really liked him. In Iraq at night his bird had just picked up a load of infantry when a tail rotor malfunction caused it to crash killing all on board. Memorial day is a time to remember all who died. Today though, I'm gonna eat drink and spend time with my family for Michael and Mathew.