A Death in Afghanistan

More than 5,000 American servicemen and women have been killed in action since 9/11. Some of them I knew.

Why is this one hitting me so hard?

I think it's because Bill Cahir struggled so openly with the conflicting responsibilities of home and family, and service to his country. With painful honesty, he went hard at the difficult issues that many of us choose to ignore.

Bill did not come from a family of military tradition. He was past the age when most young people enlist. He had a job and a career, and a woman he loved. But something else called him, and when the terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001, he felt that call even more urgently. He agonized for two years. Then he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and went off to boot camp. He was 34 years old.

Marine Sgt. Bill Cahir was killed in action this week in southern Afghanistan. Back home, his wife, Rene Browne, is pregnant with twins. A graduate of Penn State, Bill served briefly as a Capitol Hill aide before becoming a reporter with small newspapers in his native Pennsylvania. In 1999, he joined the Washington bureau of Newhouse Newspapers, which is where I met him.

We were colleagues first, fellow reporters who then became workout buddies, then friends and confidants. We'd take long noonday runs past Washington's marble monuments and across its river bridges, and I'd listen as Bill would spin out his dilemma. Clearly, the excitement, adventure and camaraderie he imagined of military service attracted him. He felt deeply that he owed something to his country. He wanted to be part of a measured American response to Islamist extremism, and he could think of no way he could better contribute than joining the military.

Was he crazy to even consider enlisting? His parents, he felt certain, would disapprove if he enlisted. Some of his friends were puzzled that he was even considering it. I tried not to give advice, but I did answer some of his questions.

Yes, I thought other recruits would taunt him at boot camp for being a decade older than them. Yes, I thought the drill instructors would give him a hard time for being a college graduate and a professional – a newspaper reporter, no less. Yes, I thought he needed to lose some body fat before he reached boot camp, if he enlisted. And yes, I thought he should listen hard to his inner voice and follow it, no matter who laughed or scoffed.

He did just that, and that voice took him to boot camp, where the other boots did indeed taunt him and the DIs surely did give him a hard time. He persevered and earned their respect, and even his parents, with misgivings, saluted his achievement.

Bill followed his inner voice on to two combat deployments in Iraq with his unit, the 4^th Civil Affairs Group, a Marine reserve unit based in Washington. He came back glowing, filled with stories of the war's pathos and black humor and terror. He thought he had more public service left in him, and ran for Congress in Pennsylvania's 5^th Congressional District. He didn't win, but he didn't sulk, and after it was over he landed a job as a consultant in the private sector while remaining in the Marine Corps reserves. Bill Cahir found nobility in military service and exulted in it. That seemed like a decent consequence of making the hard choices, following one's inner voice. Who could ask for more?

And then, Afghanistan.