Helicopter Crash

It was Friday afternoon. I was standing in the Walmart, waiting on the bank teller to finish our transaction, and there it was on their TV screen. Two helicopters collided. 12 US Marines missing…Hawaii. Everything else was jumbled. My ears closed and the tears opened. I couldn't breathe. Everything was spinning. What were they saying? What happened? Was our boy okay? They said Hawaii and he is stationed in Okinawa, but had he been sent to Hawaii and unable to inform us, unable to get through? I couldn't think. All I could do was turn to David, point at the screen. "Look!" I said to him. He stood there looking, as confused and scared as I was.

I hadn't brought the smart phone with me, so I couldn't send Davey a Messenger message. David had the presence of mind to text Laynie, who was in another part of the store. He had her send a message to Davey. She couldn't get through because she was having trouble connecting. This wasn't doing any of us any good at all. It was all we could do to finish our shopping and get back home to our Internet connection. The drive home seemed incredibly long…

I finally got through to Davey on FB Messenger. He was okay! Our boy was okay and still in Okinawa…farther away than I'd like for him to be, but at least he wasn't in that helicopter accident. It has been a very tearful weekend as each news report showed that they still have not found those missing Marines and aren't even really sure what happened to cause the accident.

The US Marine Corps is a brotherhood. These boys are our boy's brothers, which makes them our boys, too. I can imagine that their parents' and wives' hearts stopped to hear that knock at the door and see the official cars in their driveways, uniforms at their doors. As I breathe a sigh of relief that our Davey is safe, I breathe a prayer that soon these families will get the call that their boys have been found alive, safe, and in good health. 

Please join me in that prayer.