Andy Olmsted

This is the closest I've come to losing someone I know to this stupid war. And I hope it never gets any closer. To me, Andrew was a guy I only knew as an occasional poster and frequent commenter on Obsidian Wings, and I doubt we exchanged more than a few comments directly to each other. He had a different perspective from mine, but nonetheless seemed like a smart, decent and straight-up kind of person. No, I didn't know him at all, really, but it hurts anyway. I can't imagine what his family and friends feel.

It's just horrible.

Even if he says it isn't, and that serving was his choice, I can't help but feel: What a waste.

It doesn't help that my office had a good-bye lunch today, literally minutes before I learned of Andrew's death, for a friend at work who was just called-up from inactive reserve, to do a 400 day tour of Afghanistan.

Such a stupid waste.

3 thoughts on “Andy Olmsted

  1. borehole

    As inspiring as it is to see people from across the political spectrum sharing their grief, if I see one more well-intended but ill-informed comment about how he died for my freedom, I’m gonna scream scream scream. Not that this would suck less for his friends and family if he’d died Marshall-Planning it up in Afghanistan, but enough of the mythic bullshit already.

    In our one and only interaction, he treated me with true kindness when the opposite would’ve been not only justified but way more fun. The idea that a guy like that was thrown into the meat grinder to protect the job prospects of AEI fellows makes me want desperately to believe in hell.

    Sorry to vent. And sorry to flaut your no-using-me-as-a-political-chit rule, Andy, but you should’ve thought of that before you went around acting like the kind of person whose betrayal at the hands of our ruling class would be so Goddamn heartbreaking.

Comments are closed.