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EOD1 Joseph A. McSween

04.2007

Messages

  • 10.31.2011

    My name is Drew Kohler, I was assigned to A Co. 2-27 Inf. during our deployment to Iraq from 2006-2007. I wanted to tell you that I was with Hall, Billiter and McSween when they first arrived to our Battalion, they were assigned to my Platoon when we went to our patrol base for about a week. It was a quiet with a lot of sitting around and shooting the shit with our new Navy EOD guys (previously we only ever had Air Force EOD). Our time to rotate with our sister Platoon had come and my Platoon headed back to the Battalion. Hall, Billiter and McSween stayed with our sister platoon at the patrol base. The next day our sister platoon with the EOD team was traveling the same route that we had just gone down when the EOD truck got hit by that rocket.

    Everyone was absolutely devastated, there is no one more important to an Infantry unit than their EOD counterparts. The EOD guys were always the ones getting us out of some hairy stuff so to see them taken from us was nothing we ever thought could happen, they seemed invincible. Although we only got to know your son for a few days everyone liked him as well as Hall and Billiter. They were some really cool guys that everyone enjoyed talking to and sharing stories with.

    I was searching for some EOD information when I stumbled across the EOD Memorial. To see that you only posted three days ago I just couldn’t believe it. I don’t think its a coincidence that I found your post only three days after you posted. It was nice to read about him, most of which I did not know. I just want you to know that there are a lot of people who you do not know who think about Hall, Billiter and McSween and even though we only spent a few days together we all knew that they were some cool guys.

    drewkohler@hotmail.com

    ~ Drew Kohler | Tampa, FL
  • 10.27.2011

    My son, Adam, the youngest of my four children. The moment I first held him I knew he was very special, his quietness, shiny white hair and happy beep blue eyes. He was a very calm baby, slept through the night right from the start. He was a playful toddler and he loved his big brothers and sister. He always tried to do whatever he saw them doing. He learned at a very young age how to play Army with his brothers in the house or out in the backyard.
    When he started school he was a quick study, by first grade he was put in enrichment classes. In third grade he won 1st place in the science fair by inventing a travel toothbrush with toothpaste already in it. He was very creative and an artist, I still have his drawing pad. He made friend in school very easy all through school and made very good grade in school.
    Adam’s junior year in high school he was chosen to go to a leadership retreat in York, Nebraska for a couple of weeks. When Adam came back home , York had stolen his heart. Adam’s high school was small and he love it because he knew everyone there. When Adam went to York he found a college very much like his high school, a small school
    where everyone knew each other and got a long with each other. So when the College recruiter can down to Valdosta Adam’s senior year Adam had him stay with us and that was the end of my idea of Adam going to a college close to home.
    All my children are very special to me in their own way, however, Adam was my youngest and the last to leave home so it was very hard to let him go so far from home. But I wanted Adam to be happy wherever he chose to go to college. He was very happy at York and made many close friends. Going off to college is that first step of our children becoming adults and we as parent have to allow them to find their on way in the world and turn them over to God’s total care. This is when we as parents start remembering how special those past years were. As my children were growing up I would keep any little thing they made in order to hang on to those memories. My oldest son told me one day if he ever had children he was not going to keep every little thing they made like me. But today I am so thankful I have all those memories to touch and hold and let them carry me back to an earlier time in my life, a time when my children were young and safe in my arms. They take me to the sounds of laughter of children playing, and hearing the calls of mom, mom are you there.
    Adam was a Christian and he love working for the church and had always planned to be a youth minster after finishing college and his Navy career, however on April 6th 2007 the Lord came down and called my son home. I was very heart broken, but also a feeling of great pride because of the man my son had become. As for myself, I am very bless for the Lord allowed me to be Adam’s mother for 26 years.
    And he will continue living on in my heart until we are together again.
    Florence McSween, Adam’s Mom

    ~ Florence McSween | Dallas, GA