Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Missing Maloney

I mentioned here last week when a friend was killed in a truck-motorcycle crash.

The local newspaper, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer had a nice write-up about Dan on the front page of today's paper.

Dan Maloney's bar was going to be the kind of place where everybody knows your name.

Like the "Cheers" bar, which just happens to be in Boston, which Maloney called home.

. . .

But before he could become the next Sam Malone, the former ballplayer turned "Cheers" owner, Maloney had one final Army obligation to perform.

"We call it 'walking the stage,' " said Capt. David Lamborn, the Foxtrot company commander of the 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment. The rest of us call it a retirement ceremony.

It was set for April 20 at the battalion, in front of family and the friends he had made during his 20-year Army career, a stretch that included tours in Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom I and five other deployments.

First Sgt. Dan Maloney never got to walk that stage. He was killed three weeks prior to his retirement when his Harley-Davidson Road King was struck by a pickup truck not far from his Billings Lake Drive home.


I hope you take the time to read the whole article.

To the many who sent e-mails and left comments, I say thanks. But have a request: Don't think of Dan as my friend. Think of him as your friend.

Dan was a helluva soldier. And a helluva man.

It wasn't just me that lost a friend. You lost a friend, too.

4 comments:

  1. Linkfests for April 12, 2006...

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  2. My condolences about your friend...

    Anything else you say has no meaning...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Blessings to you and your friends people. (there probably are many) Excellent tribute Basil.

    ReplyDelete

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