He died suddenly, moments after striking a putt on the 16th green of his home golf course. After receiving the news on the phone, I wandered amid my thoughts for a few hours-soaking in the sense of loss and intermittently replaying in my mind the last few moments I spent with him. I recalled the good times; I talked about life and death with my two oldest sons; I thumbed through pictures in a fleeting effort to bring the past to the present. And then, just a few hours after the phone call that brought me the news of my father's death, I made a phone call of my own. I called a person who, even in the short span of those first few hours, came to mind as the role model I might turn to for the duration of my life-now that my hero was gone. I called Colonel Bill Gallagher-my former battalion commander.
In the Army we salute our bosses; we call them "sir" and "ma'am"; we stand up when they walk into our offices, or into the command post, or even when they approach us at lunchtime in the mess hall. On occasion, if we have raised our boss's blood pressure, we may stand at "attention" (back straight, eyes forward, hands to our sides) and reply "No excuse" to a barrage of questions. But in the Army we also call our bosses when our fathers die. The sense of trust and respect that will get a group of soldiers to risk their lives for their team, to follow orders in the face of danger, to put the mission first when the commander asks them to, is born not from the bars, oak leaf, or stars on a shirt collar; rather, it proceeds from the type of genuine caring, competence, and integrity that inspires complete and total commitment. I would do almost anything for Colonel Gallagher, and there is no doubt that he would do almost anything for me; my wife, Stephanie; and our four children.When I called him that night in January, he knew all the right things to say. We talked about his own dad's passing, about the defining nature of a father's death, about how to handle the next few days, the next few months, and the next few decades. As we closed our conversation,