Facebook ... it is what you make it

I hear so many negatives regarding Facebook, all the bad things that can go wrong, the what if's.

And they are right, there are certain precautions we should all take. It is unfortunate but a reality of life, and this is for everything not just using social mediums like Facebook. Frankly it is just common sense.

For me using FB is a way to touch base with old friends. Really how special is that?

Childhood friends, how many generations before us have sat back later in their lives and smiled wondering about a childhood friend and wished them well out there. Our generation now has a medium in which we can find these friends if they want to be found. We get to say hello, indirectly meet their families and share a little part of their lives with them.

I have a somewhat dysfunctional family, I have many family members I have never met and did not even know I had, and now they are here. Aunts, Uncles, cousins and a long lost godfather I often wonder about.

How special is that!

Recently I met a cousin I have that is a soldier in Afghanistan, this was probably one of the most powerful of my FB moments so far. Our house in the country is on the flight path for Trenton and we see the planes coming in over head. We stop everything we are doing and yell, "Incoming". They are huge, black and very close they send shivers through us. It is Very cool! Sometimes we take a moment and wonder if it contains the body of our latest soldier that has given up his life for a war I do not understand, try as hard as I might.

I have been driving on the 401, our Highway of Heroes as the people lined the bridges with their flags. Goosebumps and tears well up in my eyes, for a stranger really, but this moment it is so much bigger than all of us as we share our pride and grief.

This cousin I have only met once in my life, many years ago gave me an insight into a world that is so far away from my reality.

The latest soldier to fall I learned about first on his FB page, he called him a sapper. A term I was unfamiliar with, I asked him the meaning.

A Sapper is an Combat Engineer. They are probably the most needed and overworked soldiers in the Task Force. They do everything from fight, clear IEDs, minefields, Build and construct, and that is just scratching the surface.

They are all a pretty crazy bunch, but I love them.

They are also a very tight family and I have many friends among them.

I feel for their loss.

We all do, cuz.