re: My long time Pal, Roman Gabriel, just passed away ...

I'm a little liquored-up tonight fellas.

Thank y'all for the kind words. Roman would absolutely love this. I've shared this link with some of our friends. I know, in my heart, he is smiling down looking on this tonight.

He was always smiling. He was such a good man. Y'all would have loved him. He never met anyone that he didn't like and wasn't kind-to.

Another good story to share with y'all.

Roman and I and another couple of retired SOCOM officers and I were playing a foresome on a North Myrtle Beach golf course one morning over near the Dunkin Donuts off 17 ... can't remember the name of the course, Roman's house was over there but the name escapes me at the moment. Anyways, so one of the guys, another dear friend, is a legend among SOCOM troops and a good friend of Roman's who I actually served under and who introduced me to Roman years ago which is how we became good friends .... he was in the cart with Roman and we were making the turn to 10 after a stop in the clubhouse ... while in the clubhouse we were watching the news and David Petraeus had just been named Director of the CIA. We actually watched the press conference because three of us had served with David at various stations in Vicenza, Italy and at Bragg, one of us, Jack, actually served over David and was David's mentor at Bragg ... . So as we roll out to 10 and we're daring our buddy to call David to congratulate him on the appointment with this old "he's one of us" thing ... so he did. And surer than shite David answers his phone. So he's on speaker phone and he tells us he just left the press conference and he's sitting in his limo and we've got our carts side by side and Jack is congrating him and we're all busting his balls and telling him to run tags for us and stuff (it was funny, you had to be there) and Jack says, and "I'm sitting here with these idiots .... AND Roman Gabriel." And David says, "THE Roman Gabriel!?!" And we all start laughing and Roman says, "Hello General Petraeus, yessir, this is me."

So we're half way drunk and we all start laughing and Roman, being Roman, was kind of embarrassed when David starts telling him what a fan he is ...." etc. They talked for a minute then we all had to go but we congratulate him and anyways ... so many good times.

Too many friends dying.

Diamond Jack, now 87 ... just had a beautiful new baby boy born to his much younger Hollywood beautiful wife .... anyways, that's another story for another day. He beat Strom by a couple of years.

I've been blessed to know these men.

Anyways, true story. Death is sometimes a celebration of an incredible life.

I've drank too much tonight but thanks men. He would love this - he really would. He would get such a kick outta this. I can see him smiling. My wife loved him too ... she cried herself to sleep tonight. One of her favorite pictures is of her sitting in his lap after a golf tourney in Wilmington when we all went out and partied until 4AM in the morning at this place ... it was a bar in a mall, like a strip mall ... I remember that. People were asking for his autograph all night and, once word got out that he was there the place was overrun ... people asking for pictures and autographs all night. He was gracious and smiling and none of us paid for a drink all night.

Just one helluva guy.

This has been good therapy. Thanks again. Good memories for sure.