Sometimes you look to the sky and ask God, Why?

     The past day and a half have been a bit numb. There are times when you think you work hard and bust your ass to survive each and every day, then you got a text message while in class around 18:30pm, "Rick shot himself". I jump up from my seat and excuse myself from class and made a call. Rick is a 23 y/o Navy First Class Petty Officer(E-6), Nuclear Machinist Mate stationed onboard a Boomer. He is also a friend. When I meet younger shipmates, I tend to jump back into Senior mode and help them, I AM NOT RETIRED, I AM JUST AT A CIVILIAN COMMAND NOW!!!!!

     There are a group of us in the neighborhood who hang out and do things. He was the life of any party, hell during our 4th of July event at the pool, he was playing with NW and ND in the pool, they were all splashing and laughing. He also seemed to piss off a guy with his family by hitting him with a soft pool ball and this asshole said "Is this your ball", well Rick said "Yeah". So this Butt-Nugget, with all his might throws the ball into the retention pond behind the pool. Well Rick hops out the pool and goes and gets it. Well by the time this Butt-Nugget gets his family all ready to leave the pool and they start walking, Rick throws it over the fence and hits him in the back as he is walking back up to the pool. There were around 30 of us up there and we all start laughing. So Rick meets him at the gate on the way back into the pool deck and this guy says to him, "You need to "Control yourself". Rick starts laughing and says as he is walking away, "Somebody got a beer?"

     After making the call, I call JUGM and tell her and she starts screaming. I let her know that I will be leaving class early. I talk to the professor and explain to her what had happened. I had a Power-point to present to the class so she bumped me up to first. I worked on the PPT for 3 days, had 5 pages of note slides to go through my presentation and not once did I look at them nor do I even remember what I said during it. So after my presentation I leave.

    Once I get back into the community, and just short of our street, there are 6 Sheriff deputies and a Lead Investigator still there. There was also a bunch of fellow friends from the neighborhood and shipmates from his command there. My other close friend in the neighborhood, "T" was the one who went over and confirmed his suicide after Rick's girlfriend found him. I stopped and went to his house to make sure he was ok. After talking to him today, he is not doing good. I cant blame for him not feeling this way, I know it must have been a traumatic scene seeing a close friend in that condition.

    As I worked today, all I could do is look at the sky and ask why? Rick was always happy, fun to be around and just a great person. Dam-it!!! he was 23!!!!!! What drives people to do this? So many questions to ask with no answers. RIP my Friend.

June 13, 1989 - September 20, 2012