Rough Duty

From Opfor.  About the roughest, although no one I ever met would argue with the t-shirt a company commander's wife used to wear:

Toughest Job In The Army:

A Soldier's Spouse

Which, when you think about it, is true: I don't care if a troop has been assigned to clear the minefields in Korea's DMZ, his wife has it worst.  Or maybe his mother.

I was a Casualty Assistance Officer twice, which is not the guy who tells the next of kin the Bad News, but the guy who helps the next of kin navigate the process of burying the veteran, and getting whatever benefits they have coming.

The second time was a WWII/Korean War/Viet Nam vet who died of cancer, possibly (no doubt, per the VA) Agent Orange related.  His wife was German, and her father and her first husband were MIA on the Russian Front.  So she had a pretty good handle on things, just needed help getting around.

The first, though, was a 20 year old kid who dies in a garrison accident in Germany.  His folks were my age.  they were devastated, of course.  As rough as it was on them--and on me, truth be told--they told me that when the Major first showed up at their door to tell them that their son had died, it was pretty obvious that it was all the major could do to keep himself under control long enough to do the job.

There may be worse jobs for a soldier--as opposed to a spouse/mother--but I doubt it.