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War Never EndsGetting to know the men of Whiskey Six—and the loved ones they left behind.

By Phil ZabriskiePosted Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008, at 4:39 PM ET

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I didn't know them well, but they may have saved my life. I happened to be in New York visiting my parents, so I went to Ryan's funeral in Gloucester City, N.J. Later, I met Rapicault's older sister, Christine Cappallino, who lived in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The next year, on Nov. 15, I joined the Ryans for a memorial they held at a local bar. Two years later, I visited Lance Thompson's family, the Rapicaults, and Ben Nelson, thinking I'd write about how they were handling their losses.

They were wary but welcoming, still mourning but generous. I think they felt the stories I'd written for Time about Ramadi gave them a window into what life "over there" was like for their sons and helped memorialize them in some way. They, in turn, gave me a window into their lives and the steps they were taking to protect and maintain the memories of those they'd lost—the gatherings, the T-shirts, the stickers and photo books, and the scholarship funds. I saw Gloucester City High pull out a stunning last-minute victory on the day they retired Marc Ryan's jersey. I saw how Lance's brothers, Matthew and Philip, his cousin Casey, and his mother, Melanie Smith, had all gotten the same tattoo Lance had on his wrist—the Chinese characters for gung-ho. And I saw that the Rapicaults, who had moved to a planned community in central Florida in the 1990s to be nearer to Patrick, were doing their mourning in isolation. Their English was shaky, leaving them largely unable to plug into the networks the Ryans and Thompsons had at their disposal. Cappallino had moved from New York to Florida to help out her father and stepmother (then 91 and 74, respectively), but she was finding it hard to adjust to the new surroundings. More to the point, they were heartbroken about Patrick, as was Vera Rapicault, his widow, who had moved to Oregon.

Ben Nelson had improved dramatically and was working again—as a radio dispatcher for the Plaster County's sheriff's office—but he still felt the effects of his injuries. The explosion had collapsed his lungs and severely burned his hands, neck, and face. Shrapnel had pierced his back, shattered his jaw, split his tongue, and broken seven teeth. His back and knee were badly bruised, likely from landing after the blast pressure popped him out of the turret into the air, which saved his life.

There had been hard times, a few ups—especially the birth of a daughter, Kaitlyn—and a lot of downs. His father and friends helped out as they could, but in the main, his greatest asset was his preternaturally poised wife, Emily. She was 21 when she got the call telling her Ben was wounded. "She grew up fast," a friend of hers told me. "She's everything to me," Nelson said last winter.

Time couldn't run the story I wrote, which was immensely frustrating for me and, I imagine, for the families as well. But they were extremely gracious about it. Melanie Smith and Linda Ryan took to comforting me about it; they told me that it was meeting each other that really counted. Our connection wasn't much when measured temporally, and I daresay we had different opinions about the war itself, but I found myself opening up to them in ways I almost never do with people I write about.

A lot of people spent more time and faced more harrowing situations in Iraq than I did, but I think I've learned a few things about war through my various experiences in conflict zones. The biggest, I'd say, is that it doesn't really end. It marks the people who experience it, and it marks their families, too. "It's not what happens to you; it's how you deal with," Ben Nelson's father told him at one of his low points. And that's true, particularly, I think, with mourning. It doesn't go away, but if you can make some peace with whatever happened—whether it's by saying someone died doing something they loved or performing certain rituals or finding others who know the feelings involved—it gets a little easier to meet the days ahead.

Last year, on Nov. 15, Melanie Smith laid four roses at Lance's gravesite in Indianapolis' Crown Hill cemetery, red ones for Lance, Marc Ryan, and Pat Rapicault and a white one for Ben Nelson. "I notice [the anniversary]," Nelson said last year when I asked about it, but "I miss them just as much every other day."

I don't know exactly what I'll do this Nov. 15, but it's already been on my mind for a while, and I'm sure it will remain that way.

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Formerly a staff writer for Time magazine based in Asia, Phil Zabriskie now lives in New York. He has written for National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, New York Magazine, and others.

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