Lifelong friend dies in automobile wreck
Published 9:06 am Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Crushed. Shattered. Angry. Infuriated. Lost. Lonely. Sad. Writhing. Confused. Drifting. Depressed.
How are you supposed to feel when a friend dies? Eric is gone and I’m am trying my hardest not to seek reasons.
Life at times is like a game of jackstraws. Things can fall apart, and it can be hard to pick up the pieces with rapidly dwindling options.
After leaving the U.S. Army, I maintained friendships with two guys. We were three people who got together every few years and spent time together. We climbed Mount St. Helens together. We ushered in Y2K together. We partied in rural Iowa together. We served together in the Persian Gulf War in the 82nd Airborne Division.
One, Bryan Christianson, was murdered in front of his house in May as his wife watched. The wheels of justice are turning, and a trial for the killer is likely.
The other, Eric Wormstedt, died early Sunday. He had been drinking, and the party was over. From what I understand, the host had gone to bed and didn’t know Eric left. He thought Eric was staying overnight.
Eric left at about 3 a.m., and he must have fallen asleep at the wheel of his Buick. It flipped, and he was ejected because he wasn’t wearing his seat belt. From the severity of the internal damages, doctors think he might have hit a tree after being ejected. He survived an ambulance ride and a helicopter ride but the injuries were too massive.
He was 36. He lived in his hometown of East Windsor, Conn.
Eric was one of the best people I have ever known, and I was so fortunate to be his dear friend. Even if you had met him for the first time, he made you feel like you had known him all of your life. He had a way with people. Everyone liked him.
People in the Army know the routine: You go to basic, then you go to AIT, which stands for advanced individual training.
Eric and I knew each other starting in AIT at Fort Gordon, Ga. A recruiter visited our barracks and explained there was a shortage of our particular signal jobs in the Airborne. If we joined, we would get a guaranteed stateside station. Many of us joined. Many of us knew each other at jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., too, and then we scattered. By incredible fortune Eric and I were assigned to the same platoon at Fort Bragg, N.C., and were made roommates.
From then on, we were together almost all the time. We were new, but we were new together so we needed each other. I knew his Social Security number, and he knew mine, because back then you’d say the nine digits to the chow hall clerk. Sometimes, for fun, I’d say his number and he would say mine. After getting out, we used each other’s numbers in our personal security. For instance, I have to punch in the last four of his number to access my cell phone’s voice mail. He had told me I could withdraw all of his money if I got a hold of his bank card.
The full name of military units can be long. Eric and I were in Champion Node Platoon, A Company, 82nd Signal Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, 18th Airborne Corps. Champion Node was nicknamed C Node, and it was in C Node that Eric and I came to meet this wild and crazy fellow named Bryan Christianson from Tulsa, Okla. Soon, we also became pals with Maurice Pearson of New Rochelle, N.Y. The four of us ran around together everywhere, often with other guys excited to hang around with us.
Man. The things we did. The stories are too numerous to share here. I need to write a book.
Eric, Bryan and I were supposed to grow old together. Our old platoon has no reunions or any of the connections the World War II vets often maintain. After Eric and I got out and after Bryan was transferred to another fort, Maurice reenlisted and was sent to Germany. We lost track of him and despite searches could not find him.
So it was the three of us. Now, Bryan and Eric are dead. Now, it’s just me. I am writing this because it helps to write, but I don’t know what to say. It’s 3:30 a.m. Monday. I hardly have had time to absorb this news. I hardly have had time to form my feelings into words.
Eric and I had a song. It was “Jack Straw” by the Grateful Dead. Eric introduced me to the band. People think of the Grateful Dead as having shiny, happy, hippie lyrics, but really many of their songs are dark and morbid. This is one of them, and I find the song so fitting and ironic upon reflection:
We can share the women
We can share the wine
We can share what we got of yours
’Cause we done shared all of mine
Keep a rolling
Just a mile to go
Keep on rolling, my old buddy
You’re moving much too slow
I just jumped the watchman
Right outside the fence
Took his ring, four bucks in change
Now ain’t that heaven sent?
Hurts my ears to listen, Shannon
Burns my eyes to see
Cut down a man in cold blood, Shannon
Might as well be me
We used to play for silver
Now we play for life
One’s for sport and one’s for blood
At the point of a knife
Now the die is shaken
Now the die must fall
There ain’t a winner in this game
Who don’t go home with all
Not with all
Leaving Texas
Fourth day of July
Sun so hot, clouds so low
The eagles filled the sky
Catch the Detroit Lightning
Out of Santa Fe
Great Northern out of Cheyenne
From sea to shining sea
Gotta get to Tulsa
First train we can ride
Got to settle one old score
And one small point of pride
Ain’t no place a man can hide, Shannon
Keep him from the sun
Ain’t no bed will give us rest, man,
You keep us on the run
Jack Straw from Wichita
Cut his buddy down
Dug for him a shallow grave
And layed his body down
Half a mile from Tucson
By the morning light
One man gone and another to go
My old buddy you’re moving much too slow
We can share the women
we can share the wine.
Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.