I only met Amanda twice I think. I teared up too at that point. And also when I first found out because I was just opening an MSNBC article about a final blog post by a soldier killed in Iraq and the first thing I see is "Andrew Olmsted." I also spent a while just staring at the screen and wondering if there was another Maj Andrew Olmsted in Iraq. Probably more hoping.
I did pushups for him a few times. I also did them once at the 3rd ACR Bosnia training because I said that Cubs fans have suffered more then Red Sox fans.
I got lucky that you found out about his blog and gave me his email so that I could keep in touch. The one thing I really missed besides just the camaraderie of serving so close to people were the intelligent conversations on ranges of topics that I had with Andy, LT Fagan, and 1SG Gilbert. There are not a lot of people in this world who when you talk to them about intellectual topics, you feel like it is an actual conversation and not a lecture. Although I did feel like he was lecturing me on baseball and especially the Red Sox a lot of the time.
We also had one of those nights were we did the right thing even though we could not have. We were downrange Fort Carson for my last FTC and it was snowing like it only can in Colorado. Although we could have turned on the lights, we decided to leave them off because that is what we should do. Our windshield wipers didn't work properly and he had to manually turn them to clear the windshield.
I remember those kinds of things too, but one thing I'll never forget is pushing that HMWWV to 65 MPH, blowing the hell out of the speed limit at Pinon Canyon to get to the CP in time for "The 80's at 8."
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