Getting started.

OK!

This is a new thing for me; blogging that is. My wife has been doing it for awhile to be able to keep friends and family abreast of what we are doing. I only started thinking about it when I realized that it would be a good way to share photos from boy scout camping trips with the parents of those boys. But...I just never really could bring myself to do it with all the stuff going on in my life right. So you might be wondering what finally got me off my backside to do something about that. Well, let me tell you:

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from a friend I knew in college. His name is John Bruun, a surgeon and a major in the United States Air Force. He was writing me from a very small surgical hospital with a Special Forces unit somewhere in the middle of Afghanistan.

My heart skipped a beat as a wave of anxiety rolled over the top of me. This man in the middle of a war zone is a beloved husband, father of five, and happens to be one of my best friends. I didn't know he had been deployed. It took me off guard. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach knowing he was possibly in harm's way. But as that feeling subsided I got a little emotional. Someone I deeply respect was out there making sure my way of life is protected. I don't care what your politics may be; if you don't get a little lump in your throat when you think about the men and women who put their lives on the line not only for us, but for the rest of the world, then you really need to stop and take an accounting of just how blessed you are to live here in the US!

We had a few e-mails go back and forth as we got caught up things. Having had quite a few military folks, both active and retired, as patients and as current employees in my office I have come to learn not only a lot about military life on the base, but also in the field. The number one thing I have learned about our warriors is that they just want to have a piece of "home" sent to them on a regular basis. By that I mean they just want to know what is going on at home. They don't care how inane or boring it may be to us, they want anything and everything you can tell them about home life. With this in mind, I was able to read between the lines with the letters from John. I don't think he'll mind if I give you an excerpt:

"The best way to describe the days over here is it is like Groundhog Day - the movie with Bill Murray. Things don't go fast. They are just about the same every day. You get up, go to the hospital, take care of what comes in, eat, work-out, and read or watch movies until bedtime, and then repeat it again."

He goes on, but you get the picture. Anything to break the monotony! And so that is why I finally decided to start this blog...to give John something from home even if it seems boring to you or me it will be worth more than gold to him. And I dedicate everything on this blog to him as long as he is deployed. And everything, until he comes home, is going to be like a letter directly to him. When he gets home then I'll just keep doing it for family, friends and boy scouts.

The sick thing is that even though he can use e-mails, he can't surf the net and go to blogs directly. So I'm going to have to figure out a way to get the information to him without breaking any of the current rules he must live under right now. But hey...I love a challenge.

With that in mind...here we go!

You need to know a little about how he and I got to be friends. John was pre-med and I was pre-dent at Brigham Young University in the fall of 1990. We met in the dorms. I had just gotten home from my mission in Korea and had only a few months earlier decided to go back to BYU rather than transfer to Arizona State University. (Long story no one cares about, so I'll move on.) But in making the decision when I did, housing decisions being made trans-Pacific were going to be difficult, so I asked my parents to get me back in the same ward as I was in before my mission. The bishop was the same, so I figured I would know at least one person on campus. The down side was that I would be an "RM" (returned missionary) in a Freshman ward in the dorms.

John lived on the same floor as I did. We became good acquaintances and I was impressed with his "can do" attitude. So impressed that when I was asked to be Elder's Quorum President that I want him to be my first counselor. I assumed he was one of the few RMs like me in that ward. How stunned was I to learn he was still only 17 and that he obviously would not be able to be the first counselor. I made him the secretary instead and we became very good friends.

It was not long after that I came home from classes one day to find out John had been in an accident. Someone had opened the quick-disconnect on the front wheel of his bicycle and when he tried to ride the bike off the curb, the wheel came off and John went down...right on his face. I sped to the hospital as fast as I could. Back then hospital rules were much more lax than they are now and I was able to quickly get back to see him in the ER.

I am not a squeamish person, but I was not prepared for the sight at all. Swelling had already set in and it was massive. With all the cuts, scrapes, bruising and swelling he looked like Frankenstein's monster or the Elephant man. It was truly horrible! And yet he was joking and just happy to be alive. In that moment his attitude about what had happened to him was truly remarkable. My respect for him has been rock solid since that day.

John, just a few days after the accident. The swelling had gone down quite a bit by the time this picture was taken.

Tom Turner and John Bruun just before he left on his mission.

Since the days these pictures were taken, I got married and went off to dental school, he came home, got married and went off to medical school. We have kept in touch though Christmas cards mostly. Let's face it, our educations and careers have kept us both insanely busy. Having said that, John is more like a brother to me than a friend. I look forward to this opportunity to get better acquainted with my old friend.

To you, John: I love you man!

To your wife: stay strong. You are in our prayers.

To your children: no matter what, remember that your father loves you. It is part of the reason he is doing what he's doing. I am very proud of him and I know you are too. He'll be home soon enough and you can have him back all to yourselves again.

Stay strong John. I'll keep you posted.

With that in mind, good night.