This Week's 'In case you missed it'

A Marine carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Cpl. Lucas T. Pyeatt, late on Feb. 7, 2011 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

According the the Defense Department, two days prior, on February 5, 2011 Cpl. Lucas Pyeatt was killed in Helmand Province Afghanistan while conducting combat operations.  Pyeatt was with the 2nd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force of the 2nd Mar Div based out of Camp Lejeune North Carolina. 

Sean Finnegan once stated, "The real question is, what else is happening right now?"

Synchronicity is all around me, it is constant and infinitely powerful.  On Monday February 7, a friend of mine was flying back to Charlotte from Phoenix Arizona.  While the oblivious masses boarded the plane at the gate, this friend looked out of the window and saw a cardboard protected coffin being loaded.  As the box made its way up the conveyor into the hold, a Marine in dress blues stood silently on the tarmac and slowly saluted his comrades ascension.  The Marine in dress blues then quietly boarded the plane himself.  There was no announcement made to the passengers of this flight from Phoenix to Charlotte. Most of them were too caught up in whatever separation decoys that they create to notice their own awareness, let alone what is really going on around them.  However, I am confident that several folks, including my little buddy were smart enough to make the connection that the body of a U.S. Marine killed in our latest war was flying with them.  I am truly glad that I was not on that flight in trade of what it actually was.  With my life experiences thus far and the way I see and feel what is really going on around me, there is a chance, a true possibility as I imagine being there, that I would have pulled the crazy card and walked off the plane before it even took off.

When my friend returned from his trip, the story about flying with two Marines was the first thing he mentioned.  It took me some time, but by that afternoon I had identified the only Marine body that was returned to the east coast on February 7.   Once in Charlotte, Pyeatt's body would have been turned over to the 145th Air Lift Wing of the North Carolina Air National Guard for the final flight to Dover Delaware. 

To the family and friends of Cpl. Lucas Pyeatt, as well as the rest of the world, I am completely sorry that war in the name of it all has taken Lucas away.  I am sending energy your way and have thought about his sacrifice every day since I learned of it.