High School Friends

Today, I got an email from a dear ole friend...Dawn. Notice I didn't say old because we aren't old and in fact when I wrote back to her I was mentally in high school again. It's nice to have long term friends like that. She gets to work with another HS friend Brenda and I think that it's rare. Rare to go thru life with people you grew up with. Sandy is also one of those rare people that can hang out with her childhood friend. It is nice to see them stay in touch with each other. I wish more people did that. Melody has a dear friend, Beth, from 2nd grade that has been with her ever since then and it has been great for me to watch them grow up and turn into beautiful ladies, ladies with class and taste. I have the occasional Christmas card from childhood friends but I don't really have any close friends from the childhood days, except my brothers, and well, they have to like me. A few of my friends from the early days have passed away and that is tough sometimes for me to look back and wonder what it would have been like to go thru life with these guys. I have found that being in the USAF for all these years, and flying fighters etc...you try not to get too close to each other because of the inherent danger of flying fighters and any airplane for that matter. But we all have fun with people we've met along the way. I have developed some great friends since I left the active duty USAF and have some long term friends now from my reserve duty at Tinker AFB, Vance AFB, Williams Airfield and even SWA. But that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the childhood friends that stay friends forever, that are special and worth anything you can do to keep that friendship alive and going strong. That is what life is all about, friends and family. Everybody changes either good or bad and it is how you change and the manner in which you change that makes people want to stay in touch. I have developed some friends here in Iraq that I know we'll stay in contact because of what we've done here. We've experienced some highs and lows and we've even had the look in our eyes that's either terror or incredible exhilaration when our plan worked...well. So those kinds of moments are rare and times like that make a common bond that will have people making the effort to stay in contact. It's worth the good memories, thanks Dawn. So everyone go call someone from High School and say hey!! That is that!