It has been 9 months now since HN. Daniel Noble, Lance Cpl. Robert A. Lynch, Corporal Matthew Zindars, and Corporal James Heath McRae were taken from those who knew and loved them, These men are not the only ones lost and missed.

We are not the only ones who mourn. Many others have losses too, The fallen will be remembered. Whether we were companions, family, friends, lovers, comrades or acquaintances of any degree, all are bereaved. All of us whether we knew any of the fallen or not, are also bereaved. We have all lost.
Most who knew the fallen may no longer wake up in the middle of each night feeling the pain of loss as fresh at at the first instant of knowing that they were gone . We may no longer weep each day or struggle to maintain control. But whether we loved them or loved someone else who loved them. Why ever and however we miss and mourn them. There has not yet come a day when we do not think of them and miss them. Many things remind us of them, we laugh at some memories, tear up at others. We hear their voices encouraging us and we reflect on how much they would have enjoyed some event. We long to share milestones with them.

We honor them with our embrace of our own lives. We remember the good times and strive to live our own lives with enthusiasm, energy and honor as they did. Some of us, perhaps most of us have learned to shelve the pain at least some of the time and do what work we need to do.We remember them and miss them not just because they died in service to their nation and the principles it is founded upon, but because they lived with quality in service to humanity and with their own joys.

Some people think that there should be a fixed schedule for mourning ranked by some mysterious catalog of relationship and locale . Our society has swung so far to the other side of the Victorian excesses of Mourning that often people expect that we should be "done" with mourning in a short time. We may also be impatient with ourselves or others might be impatient with us.
It is O.K. to feel what there is to feel, to suffer what there is to suffer and rejoice in what there is to rejoice. Our world is richer because these men lived, Our lives are richer because we knew them and even those who only learn of them are enriched by that.There are no fixed schedules for grief we will all mourn them as long as we need to. Whether we speak about them or write or simply pause alone and remember them. There will be times even decades from now when we will remember and grieve. When we force ourselves to attempt to forget our loss we do our spirits harm. It is also quite all right. to live and laugh and love again,to treasure new companions does not in any way reduce our love and respect for those who have gone before us. It is said that the more special someone was the longer they will be missed and remembered, they were, and are , all very special and we will remember them always.