memorial day Andy was one of the best lieutenants in our Marine Corps Basic School class. He was smart, motivated, tough, and decisive. I was lucky to have him as my first roommate -- he helped me any way that he could. Had Andy just messed up somewhere along the line at TBS, or maybe not tried as hard a day here or there, he would have ended up a couple of slots lower in the final rankings and not gotten his choice of MOS. He wouldn't have been a tanker and wouldn't have been in a tank above an IED that day.
The randomness of it all seems so cruel. At The Basic School (TBS), Marine Corps lieutenants compete against each other for choice of military occupational specialty (MOS), such as infantry, logistics, communication, and artillery. From Day 1 of TBS, the only MOS Andy ever talked about was tanks. He only wanted to be a Tank Officer. Because there were only one or two tank officer slots for our entire company of 180 lieutenants, Andy would need to rank at the very top of our class in leadership, physical fitness, military tactics, and academics in order to achieve his goal.
Even though TBS is full of exceptional young men and women, Andy worked harder than just about anyone else there and ranked number 2 in our entire company at the end of the six month program of instruction. Andy got to pick tanks and became a Tank Officer. Our entire platoon congratulated him as we all knew he had been working toward that goal from the very first day.Within a year of graduating TBS, I was notified that Andy was killed in Iraq. An IED detonated underneath his tank and killed him instantly.
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