That’s about the best spin I can put on his death. Andrew Olmsted, blogger, is gone. As I read his post-death final say, yeah, the the tears streamed down my cheeks. Even though I never met the guy offline, here’s an example of a mention I made of him more than three years ago.

Why do I support our troops, even when they’re engaged in conflicts that I view as wrong? Because of folks like these: dedicated, pragmatic, passionate in their love of this country, and stubbornly refusing to yield to partisanship and jingoism that lack reason.

I should note, too, that there’s a sense of balance and fairness in Andrew Olmstead’s posts about the views and spins of both sides. Though Stryker and Olmstead seem more conservative than me, they demonstrate a practical conservatism, rather than the extremist ones so prevalent these days. I appreciate that because it opens the way to reasoned debate instead of the name-calling of more polarized folk.

I ask that no one pursue comments beyond that range with any political intent, out of respect for the wishes in his letter.

I’m the son of a now-deceased Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. For many years, my Dad flew reconnaissance planes as the flight engineer. Those Connies (EC-121s) are no longer in service, but they were the planes that flew out from our coasts to keep an eye out for incoming Soviet planes for more than the first 2/3rds of the 44 year Cold War. And sergeants, generally speaking, are an enjoyable pragmatic bunch. Besides being among the leading boots on the ground, they often pride themselves on being the ones who take charge and get things done. Often while bitching about dimwit officers.

Picking on the young ones who tried to pull rank on the more experienced sergeants was the easiest. The poor green fools, if they had any brains, quickly learned that seniority mattered far more to a successful command than who salutes who. But sergeants picked on a few in the upper officer ranks that deserved it, just as us civilians bitch about nimrod bosses that evolution somehow permitted to escape Darwin’s law.

I recall a period in the late 1960s when three Connies took a dive into the Atlantic Ocean, aqll within a couple of years. My Dad had been scheduled to be on two of those flights. He was too sick to fly on one occasion; on the other, he rescheduled a planned testing of another guy, so they both were lucky. Of the three downed aircraft, there were only 2 or 3 survivors from the last one.

My Dad’s attitude? He wished he’d been on them. He felt that somehow, he could have discovered what malfunctioned and prevented those watery graves. That he also had good odds of sharing that end was simply not part of the equation: he wanted to know what had failed. Both his curiousity and his self-assuredness that he could outmanage Death were pretty strong. I was never 100% sure if he was justified in his belief in his abilities or whether he was a little bit coo-coo, but I had to admire his genuine desire to save lives.

I suspect Andrew was something like that, too. Along my blogging path, I’ve varied a lot in choosing which non-liberals to put on my blogroll. If there were to be Libertarians or conservatives on there at all, Olmsted was always within the first two or three. Not just because of my affinity for sergeants. (He was a Major, btw, but the point is the same when you talk about the good soldiers). He was substantive, intelligent, balanced, considerate. He provided insights that us civilians usually overlook. And to this day, I couldn’t peghole his political philosophy, unless there’s a label for ‘thoughtful, practical and nice’.

As an adjunct to the Koufax Awards for great lefty blogs, I once complemented the Wampumteam’s effort with the Perranoski Prizes, as described here. And one of the awards within that group was partly defined as:

Don Drysdale Award

Once again, there’s someone right of center in their politics whose blogging has been more than sheer vitriol. They’ve raised awareness and added to the debate and you could enjoy having them over for cocktails without fear that a fistfight would result. And note, this can be an individual, a group or even a humor blogger.

Andrew was one of ten finalists for that. Liberal voters went for the humorists, however, though I wanted Olmsted.

What more can I say? I know we emailed each other at least a couple of times. And I know also that it’s been awhile -possbly a year - since I’d visited his blog. But I can say the same for a hundred other blogs I like. It’s a reflection of limited time, not anything more or less. I won’t hesitate to say that he had to be an asset in the service to our country and a good, decent man to his family and friends. If you’d read him through the years, no matter your ideology, I’m certain you’d quickly sense that, too.

War always takes good, decent people away sooner than the necessity of old Mother Nature. There’s something in human nature that accelerates such ends. Humankind has yet to master the civility necessary to prevent that prematurity.

Andrew Olmsted, I’ll miss knowing you’re around, spreading your intelligence and great spirit. I extend my condolences to all those near and dear to you. Your life is worth every celebration. And your loss was worth every freshly shed tear.

Hilzoy, at Obsidian Wings was asked by him to post his letter in the event of his death. Here’s her post. Via Memeorandum, some others have apparently written, too:

Hilzoy / Obsidian Wings:
Andy Olmsted — Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G’Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to publish in the event of his death; the last revisions to it were made in July. — Andy was a wonderful person: decent, honorable, generous, principled, courageous, sweet, and very funny.
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I’m going to raise a glass of brandy in his honor and ask him what death’s like. I’m sure he’ll make it sound entirely sensible, and probably a bit fun.

Here’s a picture and a sense of his smarts in action.

And here’s his last post at Obsidian Wings, where he used a pseudonym to blog under.

Yeah, I guess calling him a conservative wasn’t exactly right. Like I said in the title, he was most importantly a really cool guy.