Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day and I’d like to tell you about my friend Jason Faley. As you all know, I used to be in the Army. I met Jay when I was in Korea. He was an Air Force guy living in our Army Camp. At first I didn’t know why and I don’t think anyone really cared. Jay quickly became part of our little clique. He was fun to be around, dependable, he was cocky and he had a sense of self-depreciating humor, and he had a funny laugh.

Our little group consisted of Me, Dave, Jay, Greg, Malissa, Chere, and Michael C. We all got to Korea within a month or two of each other, so we knew we’d have each other though our time there. I was one of the first ones to leave and of course I gave the “if you’re ever in Clarksville, you’ll have a place to stay” speech. I meant it, but no one really thinks that someone is going to call in that favor.

A few months later, I’m sitting in my living room and there was a knock on the door. Jay was standing there with a big, goofy grin, and these UGLY metallic orange Oakley sunglasses. At first I couldn’t see past the ugly sunglasses, but there was my buddy – Jay. I invited him in and he told me that he was getting stationed in Kentucky also. He only stayed a night or two before his apartment was ready. But he wanted to surprise me. Yeah, I was surprised all right.

Over the course of the next two years, everyone but Michael C. ended up staying at my apartment once or twice. Sometimes longer… But Jay was always part of the scene. He was a wild man who loved to have a good time and was always there to help. He always had a sexy girlfriend who never seemed to stick around for too long. No one thought that Jay would settle down.

Sometimes we’d all go down to Nashville to a couple of the clubs. Jay would normally be the designated driver, because he just loved being the designated driver. He has a black Volkswagen Golf. It was either a GT or Turbo (I don’t remember), but he would drive insanely fast to and from Nashville while the rest of us in the car would beg him to slow down. Jay was a livin’ on the edge kind of a guy.

Jay was really gung-ho. Even though he was in the Air Force, he always worked with the Army. He was a Forward Air Controller, TAC-P, ROMAD… whatever you wanted to call it. He was the scary son of a gun sitting behind a rockpile, talking on the radio to an A-10 pilot and calling in air strikes down on the bad guys. And while he’s doing this – he has to be close enough to the bad guys to SEE the bad guys; and that means that he’s close enough for them to see him.

Jay was also the first to volunteer to help if you needed someone to help you move, paint some walls, watch your cats or dogs. And he never needed to be asked. The conversation would go something like this:

Jay: Hey! Do you want to go rock climbing on Saturday?
Me: I’m going to help Jon and Cathy move to their new place. (Jay didn’t know Jon and Cathy because I worked with Jon.)
Jay: I’ll help! What time on Saturday?
And before noon on Saturday, Jon and Cathy would be new best friends with Jay.

Right before I got out of the service, I met Shannon, another one of Jay’s girlfriends. And this girl was something totally different for Jay. She was very beautiful, really smart, and she totally had him under her spell. I only met her two or three times before I left Tennessee.

While I was going to college in California, I only heard from Jay once or twice a year. Jay and Shannon got married. A year or so later, they had a baby boy named Jason Andrew. We started to lose touch due to distance, job and family responsibilities… These things happen.

My buddy Dave’s wife called sometime in March 2001. Jason was killed in Kuwait. He and a group of FACs were in an observation post at Udari Range. Jay wasn’t calling in the strike, and the pilot was coming in at the wrong angle, and the pilot dropped the bomb before being cleared “hot”.

Jay’s son was one year old. It was my senior year of college and I was getting ready for finals. I couldn’t afford the airfare. I didn’t go to his funeral.

Jay was a patriot. He loved America and he loved the Air Force. He totally dug his job and if you asked him about it, he’d yap and yap about it for hours.

But he didn’t see his son learn to walk or see him off on his first day of school. He wasn’t able to teach him how to ride a bike or hit a baseball. I hope Shannon fills Jason Andrew’s head with all the stories about how great his dad was. Someday I’d like to meet Jason Andrew when he’s a little older and tell him what a great man his father was.

http://www.romad.com/finaljumper/faley.htm

That’s my Memorial Day story.