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Lance Cpl. Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt was killed in Afghanistan on Oct. 6. He was a 24-year-old native of San Antonio, a Marine scout sniper and a son of proud parents. Like many others, Corporal Schmidt volunteered for the combat tour that cost him his life because, as he explained to his friends and family, he wanted to go back to protect his fellow Marines.
Even before it emerged that he had been killed by friendly fire, his explanation had struck me because my son Ricky had given the same reason for extending his commitment in order to make his last deployment, though luckily for us it ended well. At the time, I had told him that he had done quite enough and that maybe it was time to leave the Marines and to go back to college. But he said he? had to go talk to the “Afghanistan dude:” the gunnery sergeant who would explain his options.
A few days later, as that discussion was related to me, Ricky, who had already served four years, was told he was free to leave the Marines — if he was comfortable with letting the younger guys he had helped train go into battle without having him there to guide and protect them. And, of course, that sealed it. I had warned him that the “dude” would be better skilled in the art of persuasive guilt than any grandmother or Catholic school nun ever could be, but I knew my words would have no more weight than the breath that conveyed them.
My son never met Corporal Schmidt, but they were not exactly strangers. The corporal’s father, Dr. David Schmidt, is well known in San Antonio as the team physician for the Spurs of the National Basketball Association. But, in a much less publicized role, he is also the team physician for the Trinity University Tigers, the Division III football team that my son joined when he returned home safely from Afghanistan and went to college.
In early September, Ricky had injured his shoulder in practice and was being treated by Dr. Schmidt. During office visits, they talked about football, the Marines, Afghanistan and, of course, Dr. Schmidt’s son. Corporal Schmidt had spent three semesters at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth before enlisting, just as Ricky had spent a year at the University of Connecticut. Benjamin Schmidt felt he was not ready for school and needed to distinguish himself in some other way before finishing his education; Ricky had felt the same way two years before.
Corporal Schmidt had also been a football player at Alamo Heights High School, a school that my daughter had attended before she also went to T.C.U. Dr. Schmidt described his son as handsome, complex and thoughtful, and very funny. But the words that would come to haunt Ricky were his own, when he told Dr. Schmidt just weeks before the scheduled end of his son’s deployment that he should not worry, adding that “Lance Corporal Schmidt will be O.K.”
On Oct. 7, Ricky called me, distraught on hearing the news of Corporal Schmidt’s death, and asked, “What can I ever say to Dr. Schmidt now that he’s not O.K.?” I told him that his reassurance was not a promise broken but a comfort, and that he was not accountable for Dr. Schmidt’s loss. But Ricky could not let it go, Nor, I suppose, could Corporal Schmidt have done so had their fates been reversed, an almost imponderable situation that I have now considered too many times to count. These Marines, all of them, are forever part of an organization that instills an ingrained responsibility to protect one other as both its principal weapon and its shield. And so for this one Marine, now a college sophomore, even being at home a half a world away did not soften the sting of this tragedy.
He wrote to Dr. Schmidt that night:
I do not know what to tell you, Dr. Schmidt, I have no idea, the only thing I can think to say is what I would hope somebody tell my father if my time was up: You see, over there, life doesn’t seem the same, not for us, the wins and the losses are too surreal to really hit home. We talk about “home” we talk about everything that that word means, or we think it means to us, “Ah man when I get back…,” but they are just fantasies. They are distant, and they are strictly when you have literally nothing better to do. The only thing that matters out there is the present, the guys you are with, and the idea of something greater. I believe that your son is not much different than me in this regard, not even a little. Your son is a hero, a true hero. Many people, such as me, have the burden of coming back, and fading away, forgotten. Your son will never be lost this way, he will live forever. There are many good men alive today because of a great man; and their stories, legacies and lives are a gift from him. My deepest condolences sir.
This year, with the end of the Iraq war, coming home is a common thought among us all. Still, skeptics see it as a ploy, strategically set to occur at the beginning of a national election year. Others see it as a victory and a promise kept. But to the troops and the families, from Iraq and Afghanistan, coming home is all that is on their minds. Dr. and Mrs. Schmidt, I want you to know that your son Benjamin is also on mine.
This is the fourth post that Tom Cassone has contributed to At War. Read his other posts here. If you have a loved one serving overseas and would like to contribute an essay about your experience, please write to us at AtWar@nytimes.com
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