Have you ever had to be the bearer of bad news? What bad news did you ever have to give? How did it make you feel?

Love the cat poster.

I was assigned as the Casualty Notification Officer for a Soldier who was killed in Iraq. I was to notify his father in Louisiana while another CNO notified his mother in Florida. During the 40 mile trip to his home, my PSNCO, who was accompanying me, never said one word to each other as I attempted to memorize the scripted notification. Though I could never seem to get it memorized due to visions of how my mother would react to a Soldier notifying her of my death in combat. I also thought that if I could just get through this one notification, that I would kindly request to be taken off of the CNO list. You can imagine my selfish pleasure when we arrived at the father's home to find out that his son's mother had already informed him, and had began travel to Florida to assist in making arrangements. Needless to say...I still asked to be removed from that list.

SFC (Join to see), I had to tell my Dad over the phone that his sister/my aunt had passed away. I found out myself from my cousin (aunt's daughter) over the phone. My Dad was the oldest of 6 and had already lost 2 sisters (3 counting this one).