Chris Floyd (3/22/66-12/29/07)

"Check your junk mail... a bunch of your jarhead buddies sent you some."

That was how I found out that the best friend I have ever had had died. Lori had noticed that a few of my jarhead friends (the term doesn't offend... trust me) had sent me some emails to my junk account (for some reason no one ever thinks to send us mail at our primary account!). So later that night (Wednesday the 2nd/3rd) I logged onto my yahoo mail account at work and... there it was.

I spent the next twenyt minutes or so calling both Floyd's cell number (one of the emails had said that his wife, Michelle, had that phone) and Michelle's. After not getting any answers there, I called another fellow Third Herd alumni, Stacey Frizzell. Stacey answered (Stace is a guy, by the way...) and the rest is plain from the header of this particular post. I found out that the funeral is set for 2 p.m. on Thursday, the 3rd. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit twisted up over not hearing about my best friend's unexpected demise early enough to actually attend the funeral but there's just no one to get mad at in this particular SNAFU. Apparently Floyd had written our new North Dakota number and address down sometime around the tornado in August that just about wiped us off the map but neglected to actually put it in any books or phone lists or anything else, so when everyone started calling and looking for me... nothin'. I understand. It's disappointing, but if Chris could have used a cel phone directory as well as he could a suicide clutch or a spud wrench, well, the result would have been pretty much the same but at least I could have been there.

Since I can't, though, I wanted to eulogize him as best I could.

You hear a lot about how adversity forges friendships like nothing else. You heard right. Now don't get me wrong, peacetime service in even a bungled beauracratic looney bin like the Marines isn't like what's currently going on overseas but in the mid-to-late 80's, painting fifty yards of gravel road white rock-by-rock, digging holes deep enough to bury a 1985 Ford F-150 and then being told to just fill it in when you're done, walking firewatch in the barracks on your liberty days for something a brown-bagger did while the brown-baggers got to go home because "They gots families", having CS gas tossed at you more often than is really necessary (even for training purposes), and a thousand other little inanities could really turn a bunch of young miscreants into... well, miscreants, to say the least. But we were miscreants bonded together against a common enemy. You guessed it: anyone that had even one more stripe than the rest of us. And flashy metal on the collars? Forget it... those guys shoulda all been fragged on sight!

Those (and too many others to list!) were the circumstances under which I met Chrisopher Alan Floyd. Now had I met Chris (or rather; "Floyd", or "Sigmund" or [my personal favorite] "Pink") even so much as one year earlier I probably would've sneered, mumbled "burn-out!" under my breath, and forgotten the little creep. Okay, he was never little... that's exactly why I would've mumbled "burn-out!" rather than said it out loud. But I didn't meet him then and, instead we became friends.

Now Chris was no saint, let's not kid ourselves here. I can remember literally hundreds of times when he'd scarf up the last beer and laugh as he slobbered all over the neck of the damned thing just to keep you from being tempted to snatch it away from him (as if you could!). But you know what? He'd usually be the first guy to pony up for another six (or, in 3rd Herd's case... a case!), assuming, of course that he hadn't pissed his entire paycheck away on the beer in hand. Which happened. A lot!

We hung out a lot. And drank a lot. And got drinking in public tickets a lot! But we had a lot of fun beyond drinking... although I really can't remember ever NOT drinking with Floyd! My first concert ever was with Floyd and Yogi Simpson (and maybe Hackman too, I really don't remember it very well) at the Aerosmith concert when they were still on drugs and Ted Nugent opened for them. Besides being temporarily deaf from ol' Ted's routine, I probably got drunker that night than I ever have before or since. I vaguely remember sitting down on the floor of the McDonalds' right in the line to order when Floyd looked me over and, no doubt realizing that it was either sit down or fall down for me, said; "Hey, Down'van... whaaaaa doooooon't yoooo siddoooowwwwn 'foooooore yooooou fallllll dooowwwn?" I also remember his nearly girlish giggle as he grabbed my by the armpits and literally dragged me over to a booth and dumped me in it before going back to the line to get the food.

I know; not exactly a "he dove onto the hand grenade to save me" kind of story that you see in the movies but we weren't in the movies. And for us, being drunk out of our ever-loving gourds in Norfolk was about as close as we ever got to that kind of action anyway.

And as ballsy as he was he never got pissed at us grunts when we'd start singing "Floyd's woman from Tokyo..." after he started dating Michelle McCauley, a waitress of Korean/Irish descent, at the legendary Yorktown Pub. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that story to you before, Michelle, but if I haven't, well... there you have it: we were less than touchy-feely, sensitive guys.

And then of course there was Scott McQueeney, who beat us all to whatever comes after that last six pack. Floyd was with there along with the rest of us who went to Manchester, NH for Scott's funeral. I remember how understanding he was when I used a bic lighter to burn off that Irish pennant from the collar of his, borrowed of course, dress blues while practicing for Scott's funeral at the local reserve armory (said Irish pennant being probably at most a half inch under his chin!). Very understanding indeed. That's just the kind of guy Floyd was, though. But by later that night at the Salty Dog he was totally over it and, you guessed it... drank it up with the rest of us poor saps.

I could go on forever (and wish I could) but we have to save some of our stories for the next reunion (and the one after that and the one after that and...), not that I don't think we'll be repeating 'em all over again for the rest of our own days!

In short I just want to say that Chris Floyd was a hell of a guy. In fact I've considered Floyd to have been my brother since long before we got out of the Corps together; closer even than my real brother. I was hoping that my little girl would grow up thinking of him as "Uncle Floyd" the same as Hack's kids do but now she'll only know him from pictures. He was my best friend... ever, and the world is a sorrier place without him.

Goodbye Chris. I'm gonna miss the shit out of you.

Top photo: Floyd and one-year-old Susie in our hotel room in Williamsburg, VA, 2005 (their only meeting)

Bottom photo: Floyd, Michelle, Lori and I at a restaurant in Williamsburg, VA, 2005. One of the last times I ever got to see him.