DS Ritz

So I checked my email tonight, a little thing I do every now and then. Alongside the ads for viagra and get rich quick promises of a homebased business I see an email from one of my battle buddies of Basic Combat Training, and the subject was the same as it is for this blog. Grossman, the author of the email, is one of the only battle buddies from basic that I actually keep up with. Even so our emails are few and far between. Somehow I knew just by seeing the title what secret the email would hold.

It was pretty short sweet and to the point as most of our emails are. But this one in a nutshell stated. Hey B, I'm not sure if you heard but DS (Drill Sergeant) Ritz is dead. He died in Novemeber in Airborne School. She included in her email this link: http://www.matthewritz.com/, which I later explored and found to be a memorial.

DS Ritz wasn't my DS, as in specifically for my platoon, but he was a DS in my company. D Co 787 Military Police BN, Fort Leonardwood MO. But you can bet that for 17 weeks of my life I got to see his face on a daily basis. We called him Buzz Lightyear cause he kinda looked like him! And I swear anything the man said was like an exponential expression to the 5th or higher power. For example,

"hey, hey, hey, hey, hey."
"wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!"
"don't, don't, don't, don't, don't"

He was an easy target for mocking that's for sure. But I can't think of ANY soldier of D787 that didn't like DS Ritz.

I did a little research, thank you google, and found out that DS or should I say MSG (Master Sergeant) Ritz was on his 3rd and final week of Airborne School as well as his 5th and final jump needed for successful completion when he struck his head and later died due to the injuries sustained. The story is here if I have intrigued you enough to take a peek.

DS Ritz will forever play a role in the memories I have of Basic Training as well as the Army. After all he was the DS on duty the night two of my buddies decided to have their little basic training boyfriends sneak into the female barracks. That was fun.

The craziest thing is this, ever since I graduated from AIT and the war in Iraq began, I've always checked every list of the dead I've ever seen for a familiar name and thankfully I've never crossed one. How soon we forget about the soldiers on our homelands who are just doing their jobs day to day when tragedy strikes. To extend further, how often do we take for granted those around us daily? Forgive me if I sound like I'm preaching or if I sound like one of those National Friend Week forwards that we get in our inbox, but I know how easy it is to be complacent about things like that. Hell, I do it myself. If you read my blogs regularly then you know I'm all about the humor, but I guess tonight is a blue moon where I traded in my comedy for some seriousness. (It happens every now and then)