This has been a pretty hard weekend at work. Not only did we have the normally hectic environment caused by 60-some-odd full time staff and a few hundred reservists running around all trying to get their jobs done Right Now, but we also had a few less common factors making the weekend more exhausting and draining than usual.

This was the retirement ceremony weekend for our last Command Master Chief. Although his replacement has already gotten here and is a great CMC (with whom I get along particularly well), Master Cheif Rexford was very special to everyone here in his own right. There was a good mix in the upper tiers of my command when I arrived, and there will be again, but right now the majority of the upper tiers (other than the CO, who got here about four months before me and thus was still in transition when I arrived) are transitioning to different people, and it's a little strange to be caught up in it all, especially having not gone through anything quite like it before in my new Navy career.

Anyway, that retirement ceremony was bigger than any of the handful we've done since my arrival, and I was on the working party for it. Unfortunately, because so many of us were working, very few of my shipmates at the command were able to attend the ceremony itself. So most others didn't get to hear his farewell speech or stand in line to congratulate him on retirement afterwards. However, the few people that did go were less bodies at the command to be doing the normal command business, so that was double-hardship on both those who went and those who didn't. We had a lot to catch up on when we got back (I'm still nowhere near caught up and what I missed was mandatory because of the working party), and everyone else had to work harder in our absence.

We also had a lot more special situations with drillers this weekend, but most of that was routine, just in excessive amounts.

The hardest thing about this weekend, though, was the All Hands that was held while I was over at the pavillion setting up for retirement. My chief came up to tell us (the working party) about it herself, but the whole command (them after the All Hands and the working party after our individual announcements) just had to go right back to the normal routine after the fact.

Our Commanding Officer's daughter was killed in a car wreck in the wee hours of the morning Saturday. (Or late Friday night, however you look at it.)

She was 18. They were very, very close, and he talked about her all the time. She and her mother still lived in New Orleans, where he had last been stationed, so that she could finish high school out there where she was a senior. She would have graduated in a month and a half, at which time they would have moved out here to be with him again. She was coming out to visit with him, the story goes, and whether her friends were all coming out to see him as well or just to escape to Jacksonville hasn't been reported yet. But one of her friends was driving, fell asleep, and crashed. Along with Kelly's life being taken in the accident, another senior riding in the car is in the ICU in critical condition. The driver and the fourth student/friend had minor injuries.

I feel horrible for the driver, because I know that she will be one of the people having the hardest time with this. I have seen friends get in major accidents before; I have seen a town's reaction to accidents that take promising young lives. I know that it will be worse for her in many ways than for anyone else impacted by this accident. And for the fourth friend who will most likely have some survivor's guilt and lifelong memories to cope with. They could each really use some prayers right now, and their families I'm sure.

The boy who is in critical condition, of course, could use some prayers. And his family. I didn't find out from the reports how bad his injuries are at this point, or what expectations are right now. But either way, please pray for him, as well as his doctors and his family.

More than anyone else, though, simply because I knew him personally, I am praying for my CO. We all respect this man who is so self-sacrificing, and thus this has been hard for our whole command. No one from here has seen him since before this happened, of course .. since close of business on Friday. But we all can just picture him in his pain, and we all hurt for him. His wife, too, of course. Especially those who knew the rest of the family. He has a son, as well, who I don't know quite as much about. He didn't talk as much about his son since he's here in Jacksonville and so he doesn't have to miss him as much as he missed his daughter. But I'm sure that Kelly's brother is having as difficult a time with this as I would were one of my brothers in the wreck. I hurt for this family. We all do.

Please pray for all of them.

When our Captain comes back, which will be only when he is ready (our upper tiers are doing their part so that he does not need to return sooner than when he can), he will be a different man, we're all sure. And only a few people here, if any, have ever gone through something similar enough to be able to imagine what he's really feeling right now. But all of us know that we respect and care about him as our Commanding Officer and as a great CO at that, and that he loved his daughter so richly.. so much.

Although I never met her (I'm sure I would have on Saturday, though I didn't know it ahead of time), I miss her through him. We all grew to love her in a way because of his stories. I don't know how long it will be before he will tell any stories again, if ever.

Please pray for all of the people involved in this wreck, in the rescue services, in the hospital.

Please pray for my CO, and for our command.