Which Service Member do you remember the most?

<p>One of my best buddies during basic training, David Cox, we were pretty much stuck together by the DSs throughout , he was country I was city, so we didn't get along to well at first, but after being forced together so much on every detail, we became the best of friends after learning so much about each other.</p><p><br></p><p>We graduated boot and AIT, and even got stationed in out 1st unit together, we were in different platoons, but lived in the same barracks, did a lot of things together, even dated a set of sisters, LOL. We kept in touch over the years after PCSing and even ran into each again during Desert Storm, and Haiti.</p><p><br></p><p>Wrote to each others mothers on a regular basis to let them know what we were up to since they each had officially adopted each of us without us knowing, the moms got to talking when we were stationed together at our first duty station and kept it together for years after that.</p><p><br></p><p>I lost him during Bosnia, he was killed by what is now called an IED, then it was a booby trap, I was able to take leave and attend his funeral and give my military lifelong friend a proper goodbye and salute he deserved. His mom thanked me for coming and gave me a big hug and she still kept in touch with my mom until mine had passed, she even came to my moms funeral, which meant a lot to me.</p><p><br></p><p>She even brought me dave and my basic/ait yearbook, I had lost mine years ago, she said I should have it to remember him by, I told her I had all the memories of him I needed in my heart and head, and even put another message next to the one I originally wrote in there to him, this one was to her, and thanking her for all she had done for me over the years and her friendship with my mother. I signed it your loving adopted son. We both had some good tears that day with each other, she also passed about 3 years ago, I miss all of them as they were all my friends and best mothers to me and my brother David.</p>

In some way or another all of the men and women I served with. My first PLT SGT, SFC Ben Moultrie, when I was a 2LT, My team at 10th MTN Div SIO office, My section that I deployed to GTMO and Iraq with, MSG(R) Don Iafrate and SGM(R) Jim Russell my eternal mentors and friends, 2 of the greatest Bde commanders its been my pleasure to serve - MG Kevin McBride and BG Jim Keighley, God the list is endless...

Ben, the sad reality is that the Soldiers that we remember the most are the ones that were the most troublesome. A saying that I will never forget from one of my BN commanders "you will expend 90% of your leadership on 10% of your Soldiers".

I am sure he got that from somewhere else but the fact is that we often have to spend the majority of time focusing on correcting the negative. Every once in a while there will be a success story of a Soldier that was a knucklehead and was shown the right path and straightened up and did right.