Last night after work, I drove out to Palm Springs to visit a childhood friend. He was attending a work related conference after a 15 month tour in Iraq as an Army Bomb Technician. We grew up together. It's pretty wild seeing how divergent our career paths have gone. I'm still residing in Los Angeles making toys and editting comics. He's out putting his life on the line fighting a war in Iraq by disarming and detonating bombs.

When meeting up with longtime friends, there's a constant sense of familiarity that comes with seeing them. It could be years between visits. Somehow despite the occasional lapse in communication, everything feels like old times the moment you see them. As a child I could have easily seen my buddy as a professional voice actor or basketball player. He had the uncanny ability to perfectly imitate Jim Carrey's and Jamie Foxx's best bits from "In Living Color" at the age of 13. He was also the first person to dunk a basketball at our Junior High. Despite that, the path he took led him away from Entertainment to a career in the military.

These days he's in the US Army EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). He's the bomb guy. During his two tours of duty in Iraq, he and his team would be the ones to survey the scene and disarm any explosives. Most of the time that'd involve an impressive robot that can disarm bombs via remote control. Sometimes, usually in the case of a second explosive device on scene, he'd have to risk his own life to quickly disarm a bomb by hand. He'd also be the guy that would investigate the devastating remains of any explosive detonation. Those charred remains often involved bits and pieces of an abandoned car. Those were the good cases. The bad ones involved indistinguishable parts of someone that was once living.

I am amazed and humbled by the work he does. The horrors he sees and sometimes experiences are the sort of thing I wouldn't wish on any enemy. And yet through it all, he continues to be the genuine friend I've known since the age of 3. Mad love to him and everybody else who has bravely chosen to serve their Country.