Posted on 04/19/2017 2:29:53 AM PDT by archy
per the WeaponsMan Blog:
I’m sorry to have to tell you all that my brother Kevin O’Brien, host of this blog, passed away peacefully this morning at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Let me start with some housekeeping. First, the email address hognosecommunity@comcast.net remains active and you may get more and better updates there. I say this because frankly I’m having trouble posting here. I don’t know Kevin’s WordPress password and I’m afraid that if I restart his computer, I will not be able to post any more because the password will not autofill. Therefore I can’t guarantee I will be able to make more updates on the blog.
We are planning a celebration of Kevin’s life for all of his friends some time in early to mid-June, here in Seacoast NH. I will have details in a couple of days. All those who knew and loved Kevin, including all Weaponsman readers, are welcome, but we will need an RSVP. Again, I will make details available to those who write to hognosecommunity@comcast.net. This is not restricted to personal friends of Kevin, but space will be limited, and we will not be able to fit everyone. It will be a great opportunity to share memories of Kevin.
We will be looking for stories and pictures of Kevin! Please send to the email address.
I expect that some time after the celebration, I will be shutting down the blog. No one other than Kevin could do it justice.
Finally, you should know that Small Dog, whose real name is Zac, has found a home with other relatives of ours. Of course the poor guy has no idea what has happened to his beloved friend but his life will go on.
Now I’d like to tell you more about Kevin and how he lived and died. He was born in 1958 to Robert and Barbara O’Brien. We grew up in Westborough, Mass. Kevin graduated from high school in 1975 and joined the Army in (I believe) 1979. He learned Czech at DLI and became a Ranger and a member of Special Forces.
Kevin’s happiest times were in the Army. He loved the service and was deeply committed to it. We were so proud when he earned the Green Beret. He was active duty for eight years and then stayed in the Reserves and National Guard for many years, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2003. He told me after that that Afghan tour was when he felt he had made his strongest contribution to the world.
Kevin worked for a number of companies after leaving active duty. He had always loved weapons, history, the military, and writing, and saw a chance to combine all of his interests by creating Weaponsman.com. I think the quality of the writing was what always brought people back. Honestly, for what it’s worth, I have no interest in firearms. Don’t love them, don’t hate them, just not interested. But Kevin’s knowledge and writing skill made them fascinating for me.
Kevin and I really became close friends after our childhood. We saw each other just about every day after he moved to a house just two miles away from mine. In the winter of 2015, we began building our airplane together. You could not ask for a better building partner.
Last Thursday night was our last “normal” night working on the airplane. I could not join him Friday night, but on Saturday morning I got a call from the Portsmouth Regional Hospital. He had called 911 on Friday afternoon and was taken to the ER with what turned out to be a massive heart attack. Evidently he was conscious when he was brought in, but his heart stopped and he was revived after 60 minutes of CPR. He never reawakened.
On Saturday, he was transported to Brigham and Women’s where the medical staff made absolutely heroic efforts to save his life. Our dad came up on Sunday and we visited him Sunday, Monday, and today. Each day his condition became worse.
As of last night, it was obvious to everyone that he had almost no chance of survival; and that if he did by some chance survive, he would have no quality of life. Kevin’s heart was damaged beyond repair, his kidneys were not functioning, he had not regained consciousness, and he had internal bleeding that could not be stopped. We made the decision this morning to terminate life support.
I’m not crying tonight. I got that out on Saturday. What I feel is a permanent alteration and a loss that I know can never be healed. I loved Kevin so much. He was brilliant, funny, helpful, kind, caring, and remarkably talented.
At dinner tonight, we agreed that there are probably many people who never “got” Kevin, but there could not be anyone who disliked him. Rest in Peace.
Please feel free to express your thoughts in the comments and to the hognosecommunity@comcast.net email address.
RIP.
Not funny, dude. :-(
No, not really funny, I'd miss Laz too. But I guarantee you Kevin/Crim18/Hognose would have chuckled. He had the peculiar sense of humor and irony that is found in those of Special Forces, the USMC, and combat veterans who've seen really sporty moments. He had it, and he appreciated it in others, whether they'd picked it up in our circles, or otherwise, or came by it naturally .
One of my last posts to him at his blog was a correction of another poster's statement that *whoever dies with the most toys wins,* which might have been a description by some observers of Kev, a collector of odd and unique examples of Czech handguns- and other noisy things. But I opined that it should be *Whoever dies with the best toys that's the real winner.*
He responded to that post, and seemed to appreciate it. I think he was one of the winners.
I’ll yield to you on that.
Thank you for your wonderful tribute. Life is full of surprises some good some bad. From one moment to the next we do not know what the next will bring. Each day is a gift we have to share with each other. Praise God for the gift of you brother.
Eternal rest grant unto Kevin O Lord
and may perpetual light shine upon him.
May his soul and and all the souls
of the faithfully departed
through the Mercy of God
rest in peace.
I appreciate that, my FRiend. Back when the announcement of Kev's hospitalization was made, I considered a cautionary warning to others about the hazards of do-it-yourself gender reassignment surgery. But something told me that whatever had him in the hospital was Not Good, and potentially Not Funny. And as it turned out, he never would have gotten the joke.
RIP Kevin....
Writing like this, from his blog and posts here made him very memorable.
from The False Lure of Symmetry,
...Take countersniping. As the Australian Army battled the Japs for the archipelagos north of Australia, their arsenal at Lithgow struggled to make the sniper rifles they needed to countersnipe the Japanese soldiers — who were, the Aussies grimly admitted, pretty good at sniping. Lacking the patience to await Lithgow filling their open orders, the Australians improvised countersniper teams with what they had. One man would use a helmet or other item as a decoy, to induce the sons of Nippon to fire. Rather than plunk a .303 slug into the Japanese sniper’s braincase through his lens set, as Hollywood would have it, they’d simply fill his leafy perch with lead from a BREN Gun. The lack of precise address for their poison-pen letter would be overcome by junk-mailing the entire block, in other words.
Grand close to that paragraph.
thanks for posting
What a winning smile he had.
in his element
With gratitude to God for a life well lived, RIP.
Ave atqe vale; Hail, and farewell!
Absolutely. It's now one more Absent Comrade's smile that I hope to see again someday, another damn reason to live my life a little better than I might otherwise.
It shouldn't be all that hard for me, though. All I have to do is follow his example, even though I'll never be able to manage it as gracefully as did he.
That’s a very forceful tribute to your friend.
Thank you. He was very forceful friend. And I am not at all the only one who felt that way about him.
Prayers for you and your brother.
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