Thursday, November 6, 2014

Another Goodbye

I woke up Wednesday morning to some expected but sad and unfortunate news. A former coworker of mine, Major Christopher Franco, passed away after a long battle with cancer. I will always remember Chris fondly as a quirky guy who always pushed himself and didn't let anything bother him.

I first met Chris when I was in the 296 Brigade Support Battalion and he came over from 5-20 Infantry (or as he called them, "The Tweez"). Chris was a former infantry officer branch detailed over to logistics, but he refused to give up his infantry mentality. One memory I have of him is from PT when the officers were scheduled to run the route around the airfield on FT Lewis. Chris shows up in his PT uniform plus his flak vest with the kevlar sapi plates inside. As he put it to us, he wasn't about the BSB "make him soft."

We both worked on staff and since I was a 1st lieutenant still figuring things out and Chris was a captain, he took me under his wing a bit. He was there to talk to when I was going through a tough period in my life and during the 2006-07 deployment he could be counted on to always have a ridiculously funny story about his first trip to Iraq.

Rest in peace Chris. I'll meet you at Fiddlers' Green.

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