The Incident

On January 15th, something we are gingerly referring to as "the incident" happened. Two helicopters collided over the waters off of Haleiwa. Twelve Marines were lost. They were all stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Their friends and families are a part of our small community. We are still reeling from the shock.

Those facts can't express the heartache of the past two weeks. The first week of anxious searching. The memorial. The flags being lowered to half mast for five days, then raised again. We move on. We don't move on. Every mention of HMH-463 (Pegasus) brings an inward gasp, a reminder of what has happened.

I helped man the Emergency Family Assistance Center, where we waited for friends and families to appear or call seeking counseling. No one did on my watch, though the early shift got some frantic calls from parents on the mainland. What we got was an outpouring of offers of help from the community.

No one knows the rules for how to handle this kind of sudden tragedy. Twelve Marines, between the ages of 21 and 41, there one morning and gone the next. They left behind wives, children, girlfriends, parents, and close friends. The memorial was exquisite, with beautiful rituals--roll call, taps, draping crosses with the gear of the lost Marines--and heartfelt personal narratives by friends and commanders.

This is the kind of cataclysm those of us, like me, who are peripherally involved turn our faces away from. It's just too hard to imagine one of those Marines being my son or husband. Many, like me, offer to help because we need to do something. Many, like me, snipe at each other because we are aggravated and sad, and its easier to do that than think about it. You could see the broad scope of emotion brought on by devastation play out in Facebook comments all weekend.

I did not work on base during the heavy years of the Iraq insurgency. These "incidents" are new to me, though I suspect that they don't get easier. I guess all I can say now is that it happened, and I will always remember it.