Naples Reunion (Sort Of)

I've been in the Navy for a while now (13 years active duty) and have served at six different commands and moved 8 different times.  Along the way I've met a lot of great people (and some not so great).  Some of my greatest friends are from my Navy time (and greatest enemies).  If you spend long enough in the Navy you begin to learn what it means when someone says 'It's a small Navy' (in fact its the largest in the world by an order of magnitude).  It's not uncommon to know several people at a new command or meet old friends when deployed.  Well, it's been a long deployment, with many ups and downs, but by far the highlight is being reunited with one of my great friends (saving the lives of our servicemen not withstanding).

Jason and I have known each other for nearly five years now.  We first met when we were stationed together in Naples.  Since then we have made a lot of people different with our Laurel and Hardy approach to surgery, taken and passed our board exams,  gone off to fellowship, and one of us got married while the other had a child.  We have kept in contact often while back at home, which is rare as one grows older.  Jason has been at Kandahar now for about three months and before each of us left (actually even while we were at Naples) we talked about how nice it would be to be deployed together (well, nice is relative here).  Despite the odds it has come to fruition and we were reunited when I got transferred here about two weeks ago.  It's been tough being at a new command so late in the deployment (you know how they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks), but Jason has kept me sane and has been a great friend.  Despite being away from his young son and wife, he constantly keeps a positive outlook and works his butt off (mainly in the gym, but thats work too).  Here's to Jason and hoping he gets home soon.