The day comes and goes, but never without the beeping alarm of a watch at 0500 hours. For 30 seconds or so, the rapid beep alarm is distinct and can be heard all through the house. And then, there is the beep on the hour which is self explanatory, but what is significant about the alarm at 0500 hours? His schedule in Iraq was never fixed to a certain time. Maybe it was to remind him to think of his your wife of just three months back home as her day was coming to a close? Who knows and we will never know.
Strange his watch survived the violent bomb blast that took his life at 0220 hours that 16th day of August 2005. It survived the long trip home in his foot locker and even another year and half waiting to be free again to beep and be heard. A few weeks back, his wife and I went through his things - it was time, and she gave the watch to me. A proud gift to have, no doubt, for he loved his watch - never knew him since he was a little boy to be without one. This one was on his arm that wrapped around me in a hug of love and final goodbye just three months before he died.
Now, it resides on his self, atop an American flag, in his room at his dad's house, just under the picture of him standing beside a roadway giving aid to another wounded soldiers just days before his own death. And there, where you would expect, is the watch, doing its job as he wears it on his left arm, fully in view in the last picture known to have been taken of him. As if I needed to be reminded, the hourly beep is a sweet sound that connects me in a new way to my boy. I just wish I knew why the watch beeps an alarm at 0500 hours local Iraq time.
Robert Stokely
proud dad SGT Mike Stokely
KIA 0220 hours 16 Aug 05 near Yusufiyah south of Baghdad
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