Final Soundslide Script!

It was August 6, 2002. My family and I flew to Greenville, NC to attend m y uncle’s wedding. The entire time we were there, I spent countless hours laughing and driving around aimlessly with my uncle, listening to his favorite music by the Dave Matthews Band. My Uncle Chris was my favorite relative, and those 4 days in North Carolina were a blast. Little did I know that with a kiss and a hug and a plane ride back home, I would never see my uncle alive again. The saying goes “you don’t know what you got til its gone”. I never knew how much this statement would impact my life.

My uncle, Captain Christopher Cash was living the dream before he was deployed to Iraq. He was a 36-year old father of 2 teenage boys, he has recently gotten remarried to the love of his life, & he was looking forward to starting a family with her. His career as an exercise physiologist was keeping him in supreme condition on top of the countless miles he would run every day. Serving in the Army Reserves after almost 20 years in the Army, my uncle was required to attend boot camp once a month.

He was born and raised in Rhode Island, attending high school in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, and moving to Texas and North Carolina for the army. He had an accent that was a mix between the lovely melting pot accents of Rhode Island, with a twist of Southern twang. For as long as I can remember, my Uncle Chris had lived in North Carolina, so I really didn’t get to see him much. But long distance phone calls and short visits here and there kept us close. We would always sit down together and tease my mom, which is his older sister. We were like a tag team. He had a muscular build and I always believed that my uncle was my hero, no matter if he was in jeans and an Eddie Bauer t-shirt or his army fatigues, my Uncle Chris had always been a hero in my eyes.

June 24, 2004 changed my life completely. I had never really lost any close family members, and was unaware of the pain it caused. It was a typical summer afternoon, my sister & I were preparing for our softball game that night. We were just about to start eating dinner with my parents, when the phone rang. I picked it up and found that it was my grandfather was on the line. He sounded frantic and told me to get my mom as soon as possible. I handed the phone to my mom and the rest was a blur. I learned that my Uncle Chris had been killed in Iraq, due to an enemy sniper. My heart felt shattered and I couldn’t do anything but cry and scream “NO” over and over again. He was gone. I never got to say goodbye.

My mom always says you have to make the best out of every situation. After my uncle passed away my family and I started a memorial race in his honor. It was tough to celebrate Christmas and not get a phone call from him, and to celebrate Father’s Day when I knew my cousins had no one to celebrate it with. I still miss him more and more every single day, but I do know that my uncle, Captain Christopher Cash was a hero.