First Time for Everything

I've been putting off writing about this for a few days so I could get my head around it: There was a plane crash on 04-28 that I had to respond to. My department got a call regarding a small ground fire behind a church and had a few people, including myself, respond. When I got on scene, I was told that it was a confirmed single engine plane crash with at least one victim. Later on, the second victim was found, under the first. I've seen dead folk before, it's part of the job. Heart attacks, GSW's to the head, hanging's, pill overdoses. One Guy tried to cut out stomach cancer with a steak knife. So, two more dead Guys isn't really an issue. What gets to me is the last few seconds of a person's life. There was a witness who said the plane flew low over His car, gained altitude, then rolled onto its side and slammed into the ground. He said He could see the pilot wrestling with the controls. Imagine His nightmares. A few people that live nearby went to the scene to try to help and said they couldn't even distinguish bodies in the wreckage. Me either. I thought the one Guy was a seat. Turns out He had no arms or legs. All I keep wondering about is whether or not the Guys who died believed that their lives had been fruitful. As it all flashed in front of them, did they think "Well, I can't do anything else?" I wonder what the family of these Men were doing as the plane went down. Did they have a sense of doom? Did the sky go dark? Was a peal of thunder heard? I have a huge coffee table book titled Nam: A Photographic History. Inside is a picture of an Army(?) squad leader who has been shot and is being worked on. He's laying on the ground in the middle of bamboo and the war is still going on around Him. When I look at the picture all I can do is stare at His wedding ring and wonder what His wife was doing at that exact moment.