PRESERVING A MILITARY LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The following Reflection represents CPL Joshua Thigpen’s legacy of their military service from 2002 to 2014. If you are a Veteran, consider preserving a record of your own military service, including your memories and photographs, on Togetherweserved.com (TWS), the leading archive of living military history. The Service Reflections is an easy-to-complete self-interview, located on your TWS Military Service Page, which enables you to remember key people and events from your military service and the impact they made on your life.
What do you miss most about your time in the service and what made this especially significant to you?:
Brotherhood and Comradery: What I Miss Most From My Military Service.
While I miss many things from my time in the service every day, the element I miss the most is the comradery I shared with those I served with. In the early 2000s, it was a high op-tempo existence. We were constantly mobilized OCONUS, CONUS, and even assisting with things like Hurricane Katrina. We never knew if we would be together, and when several of us would be pulled out for an ad-hoc mission, we didn’t know if it would be the last time we would ever see one another. Yet somehow, we always found our way back together, and some of the most defining characteristics of who I am today came from my time with my brethren in the field. We didn’t squabble over issues that currently tear friends, family, and compatriots apart; we just saw each other as brothers to fight next to and for. When I look back on those days, I don’t remember the fear, I don’t remember the pain, the sweat, the tears of agony, enduring whatever hardship was placed before us next. What I remember is the laughter, the smiles, the extremely cool and unique things we got to do as soldiers together. Whether it be the disciplined execution of elements within our Top Secret ADA Mission in the NCR or us looking out for one another as we shammed out behind a connex, I have never trusted and believed in a group of men to both do their duty with integrity and to look out for me while doing it.
As time went on, and we each went onward and upward in our careers or left the service, some of us would face the issues that many Veterans face who did what we did. And in those darkest of times, I know that I would look at pictures we all had taken together. Us being ridiculous in our downtime, as we often were to deal with whatever may lie ahead of us. I would stare upon these images and find myself longing to be back in that time and place. Not so that I could be away from the issues that I may be facing, but because there was never any better time and place than with my brothers of 4th Platoon, where I wouldn’t have to face any issue…alone.
It was especially significant to me because I know now, as I knew then, that it was a once in a lifetime set of friendships and brotherhood we shared. In my years since retirement and going my own way, I have not seen such relationships paralleled in those I know who serve today. Our bond, our comradery, was something of astonishment and reminiscent of the great groups of men and women who served before us. And because of it being the last of a good thing, it is only natural that we miss the most what we know we can never have again.
Home and Country! (A couple of Images of My Brothers and I.)
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