I met Josh Harton when we were both about 13 years old. My mom had started bringing me and my siblings to more SCA related events and the adjustment to this new group of people was awkward at best. One of my first memories of Josh was when my mom had brought us to a Mountain Confederation gather. I was sitting by myself in an awful dress my mother had tried to make with the best of intentions. He came up to me and asked what was wrong. I said I was upset because I didn’t know anyone and I felt like I looked stupid. He said if I was worried about what I looked like in front of people, I should just stop being in front of people and we went for a walk in the woods together.

Our walk through the woods uncovered different wooden obstacles that we decided to play on. It was either winter or early spring, so the ground was still cold and wet and we would occasionally slip and fall off the obstacles into the soggy ground. I remember my shoes were soaked and I had mud on my dress by the time we got back. Josh was also dirty. He said we both looked stupid so I didn’t have to worry about everyone looking at just me.

He became my first friend in the SCA. I was a really shy kid so I clung to him any time I saw him and he helped introduce me to other kids our age at events and a few of his friends from home. If I ever tried to hide out by myself at Pennsic (which I often did between the ages of 15 and 18), he wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to hang out with him and our friends.

For the majority of our friendship, I was living in Northeastern Ohio and he was living in Eastern Pennsylvania so we kept in touch with AOL Instant Messenger throughout the year. I would tell him my problems and he came up with more interesting ways of looking at the situation until they were no longer problems.

Our SCA household, the Mountain Confederation, had a rule that the oldest minor had to run errands around the camp. I would turn 18 just two weeks after Pennsic in 2004, which made me the oldest minor in camp, but Josh, who was a month and a half younger than me, told me to tell everyone I was already 18 and he would take the role as oldest minor. As much as his sacrifice came from a place of caring, he would also use it to guilt me into hanging out with him later. He definitely had his priorities in check.

Josh eventually joined the military. I’d always get nervous when my friends enlisted and I told him I felt that way. He told me it was scary for him too, but it wasn’t so bad. We kept in touch online when he was able and aside from occasionally indulging my “what is it like” questions, we would talk about our respective wild nights of being in our early 20’s and our continued struggles with the opposite sex.

The morning I found out Josh had been killed will never leave my memory. I had been sleeping on my living room couch, which was unusual. I had an extremely hard time falling asleep the night before so I stayed up watching TV until I passed out. I woke up early and my mom called almost as soon as I opened my eyes. It was early for her to be calling me on a Sunday, so I knew something had happened. She told me Josh had been killed in Afghanistan. I didn’t feel anything. She said she was sorry and hung up. A few minutes later the news finally registered with me and I cried on that couch for about two hours.

The full reality of the situation came when I made arrangements to go to Eastern Pennsylvania for his wake. I was looking forward to seeing our mutual friends who were going through the same thing, but it was a very bittersweet reunion. We were all dealing with it the best way we knew how - by getting so drunk that by the end of the night we were all holding onto one another for support and slurring every song we proudly belted out as a group.

It wasn’t until well after his death that I heard the full story of what had happened the day he died. Josh was KIA on September 18, 2010 in Afghanistan when a Taliban member shot a bullet through his neck that traveled out through his left hip. The bullet cut his carotid artery and destroyed his organs on the way out.

I felt guilty after his death. I felt like I could have been a better friend. I could have sent him care packages, I could have written him letters, I could have tried to keep in touch more. I knew nothing could ever bring him back, but I just hoped I was a good enough friend to him while he was here. The support of his other friends helped me get through that guilt. We built stronger bonds with one another and kept the lines of communication open to talk about the pain we were all still feeling. If I couldn’t be a better friend to Josh, I would be a better friend to Ian, to Beebe, and whoever else needed me.

On October 14, 2011, which would have been Josh's 25th birthday, I got a half sleeve dedicated to his memory. Josh was into a lot of nerdy things, which is normal for a kid raised in the SCA. His interests ranged from Transformers to history to Pokémon, but one of his favorite subjects was zombies. I wanted to pay tribute to him in a way that he would have completely loved so I came up with the idea to get a half sleeve depicting Josh fighting zombies. One thing I really love about this tattoo is that it gets a lot of attention from people when I'm out, which gives me the opportunity to share his story with more people.

*Half sleeve by Andy Shingleton, The Gentleman Tattoos in North Lima, OH*

In the summer of 2012, I had the honor of attending Fort Drum’s annual Remembrance Ceremony with his mother, sister, brother in law, niece, nephew, and two of his other close friends, Justin Beebe and Griffin Stinner. This was the second year for his family to attend the ceremony, the year prior was the first after his death. I had never been to a Remembrance Ceremony, especially not at this scale, and was not totally prepared for the emotions that came with the rest of the day.

My name badge for the Fort Drum Remembrance Ceremony

We took our seats for the morning ceremony. There were many other families there, some with small children. During the ceremony, they read off a list of those who were killed in 2011. With every name read, you could hear a different section of the audience begin crying. I remember one family in front of me had the name of their son on their shirts. When his name was called, the mother collapsed to the ground wailing. I began crying with them. Josh’s mom put her arms around us and cried too. Josh was killed in 2010 so his name was not read during the ceremony, which I was thankful for because I would have been wailing on the ground myself, but his mom took us to see the plaque that had his name on it and we all cried harder.

This isn't the plaque, but a brick at Fort Drum's Memorial Park

We were able to go through different parts of Fort Drum that day under the guidance of Lt. Garrett Fridline, who didn’t know Josh, but was very eager to learn about him. I was really surprised and impressed that there are so many reminders of Josh at Fort Drum and I’m really glad that his memory will continue to live on there. Any time we saw a physical reminder of Josh, we had to pause and have a quick cry break before continuing on, but it was nice to see his memory preserved so well.

I apologize for the quality of some of these, they were taken with a cell phone a few years ago

I didn’t know Josh as a guy in the army. I knew him as the guy that pushed me to get over all the problems I faced by looking at them from a different angle. I knew him as the guy willing to subject himself to the demands of our household elders so I didn’t have to. I knew him as a person I could always talk to. Josh did everything he could for me and his other friends and he did everything he could for our country. He paid the ultimate price in the end, but we’ll never let his memory fade.