Roses and Sumlin

This is in my girl's bathroom, which at one time was Aaron's bathroom because I gave him, yes, gave him our room, the master bedroom!

Anyway, these are the two white roses that each came from 2 different dozen I've written about in other stories. The rose in waxed paper to the left is the one Aaron gave me when I graduated in December 2003.

The other rose is one that LT McCoy and his wife sent me when Aaron was killed. The LT was Aaron's platoon leader in OIF 2.

Within the window is also a drawing of Kayla's young interpretation of the Easter bunny, and then there's a photo of me on a forklift and Spc. Sumlin ground guiding me.

Sumlin, then 21, drowned in the Atlantic Ocean in Panama. We were very close and Aaron, then a fourth grader, loved him. Aaron was crushed when Sumlin passed. He wrote Sumlin's mother a letter. I remember it said, and he was my very best friend ... Sumlin was from Alabama.

Sumlin was deployed and only back at the rear for a couple of weeks. He and my NCOIC, SFC Cooley, had just been to eat lunch with us in our home on a Sunday before he went swimming with his girlfriend a few hours later.

The strange thing was, Sumlin could not swim and was afraid of the water. I guess he was just so infatuated with this girl, Panamanian, that he didn't want to tell her.

A current took them under. A boat passing by was able to save her, but not Sumlin.

I went with my E-7 to identify his body at the morgue. It was not pleasant and I haven't had to do anything like that before or since.