lost friends

this dang war has cost america some of its finest sons and daughters. im not gonna expound on the whole thing of "how many nobel prize winners or doctors or such great people have been lost?" thing. I myself have lost 4 people i considered friends.
First one was Justin Hebert. A just turned 20 year old, full of life paratrooper that jumped into iraq with us. He had an italian girlfriend and was looking forward to spending time with her when we got back. Everyday he would ask me..."when we going home sergeant?" i told him (after about a week of this) "when i tell you to pack your bags and get on the bird!" When he was killed, i encountered one of the hardest things i have ever had to do, tell my team we had lost one of us. 2 of the kids had just arrived within 2-3 weeks before. I think it shook them up very bad. The rest of the team took it well, considering.
David Bernstein was are XO. His little crappy room was next to mine in the school we had occupied. Spent many an hour just sittin and talking to him. Best memory of him was one night when the mad mortarman had flung some more rounds at us, and there he is, wearing his helmet, t-shirt, shorts and shoes carrying his rifle, and saying "dammit, a man cant even take a s**t around here!" i was almost crying i was laughing so hard.
Micheal Yazinski was our battalion commo guy before he went up to brigade. I lost touch with him before we went to iraq, and then found out the news he was electrocuted standing up an antenna once we got back.
David Rice. one hell of a kid. always, like myself, struggling with his weight. We had dubbed him "our fat little buddy". Always ready to knock himself out trying to do the right thing. Spent the whole year with us and then shipped out to another unit. Just found out he was killed in Baghdad in a grenade attack last week. Still somewhat hard to believe. Im gonna miss him.
There was another kid, john hart, that was in my company that got killed the same night as david bernstein, but i barely knew him. he had only been there about 2 months.
Never really thought i would have to go through this, course, never thought i would jump into a foreign country with the intention of fighting either.
I hope you fallen paratroopers are resting easy in the harness. God bless your families.