The friendship that Bob and I shared goes back well over 45 years. We first became friends in High School. Bob was a couple of years older than I was but we shared a lot of common friends and acquaintances. After Bob graduated he enlisted in the Air Force so the Army wouldn’t draft him and send him to Vietnam. So the Air Force made him a Security Policeman (or Air Police or whatever they called them in those days), trained him to fire mortars and sent him to…Vietnam. When he came back from Vietnam he was assigned to Peterson Field in CO and shortly thereafter I enlisted in the Army as a Military Policeman and ended up at Ft Carson in CO. It was a little ironic. We had lots of fun while assigned in CO. We both drove MOPAR vehicles which we washed and waxed for hours on end while listening to 8 tracks of our favorite artists. To this day I think of Bob anytime I hear a Bobby Vinton song. Or any number of artists his children might have heard growing up.
Bob worked AF security at Cheyenne Mountain at a time when it was one of the most secure facilities on the planet. Well, except when Bob and his fellow AF cops would smuggle me in for midnight chow with them. And while I had a pretty high security clearance myself at the time, it darn sure wouldn’t have got me into Cheyenne Mountain! I could go on and on with stories from those days but they would only interest Bob and me. And now it’s only me.
Over the years we kept in touch sporadically and finally reconnected about 5 years ago thanks to social media. Since then we’ve shared messages and the all too rare phone call. We shared military service and exchanged greetings every Veteran’s Day that only those that have served will understand. It is truly a brotherhood.
If you were his friend, you had no better friend. He was a funny, wonderful, generous and most of all kind man. I will miss him very much. RIP Brother Bob.
