Thread by @Cernovich

I remember that Brian would walk up two steps in single stride. He was unbelievably handsome and simultaneously insecure the way most college aged men are.

We’d bullshit during OCS with a third friend who also didn’t fit in. Our other friend was a recovering alcoholic who got me into self-hypnosis CD’s.

Life was simpler then. Brian’s main focus was finishing his mechanical engineering degree and closing the Captains of Crush #3, which was a pretty big deal at the time. He could rep out the 2, which I could only get a few reps in.

We moved on as people do. I went to law school. He got deployed to Iraq.

I remember the call from our friend. “Brian‘s dead.” What? “Slavenas, he’s dead.”

For her own reasons, which I won’t question as her grief isn’t a feeling I could begin to comprehend, Brian’s funeral was closed off to his military brothers.

We never got to say goodbye, though feelings always linger, watching a casket fall hardly brings closure.

As I get older and think back, mostly I feel disgust for the people I see on Twitter talk about patriotism when they lied the country into a war.

I try to feel love, and if I’m not mindful, rage creeps in. They killed my friend.

So that’s what Memorial Day is for me. A mixture of sorrow and hate.

RIP 1LT Brian Slavenas.

We loved you brother, even if back then men don’t know how to show it.

newyorker.com/magazine/2005/…