I've been watching TV coverage of the earthquake in Mexico

[genxlib]

48. You hit the nail on the head

The ones that could have been avoided hit the hardest.

The big number of 250,000 deaths is a tremendous loss but they never weighed so heavily on my soul. I am a big believer in fate so I can pretty much accept that as out of my control.

But late in the deployment we came across several cases where people had survived for days in the rubble but passed away before we got there. I have no doubt we could have saved them if we had found them in time. Those crushed me. I couldn't help but feel like their fate had been in my hands if only we had been at the right place at the right time. It took me a while to come to terms with that.

It seems fitting that this topic surfaced for me to contemplate today. The anniversary of 9/11 is often an emotional time for me (I wrote about that here https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028157750 ). But this year passed without much thought because I was in the throws of a hurricane and power outage. I guess the Universe wanted to remind me.

Thanks for your well wishes and for your service as well.