Remi Benson from Alabama 1LT
I met Remi Benson at the airport in Birmingham, Alabama in 2002. I was on tour with blues pianist Henry Butler who was based in New Orleans. Henry did two nights in Huntsville and then I was flying home to SF. Actually, it was my first week on the job in that I had flown to New Orleans to interview, was hired on the spot and left to Huntsville by car the next morning with Henry and his assistant.
Remi was flying out for active duty. We spoke for a few minutes. I recall learning that she was a first generation Nigerian-American, ran track in high school there in Birmingham, and that her mother was soon to be celebrating a milestone birthday. We traded contact info and actually a letter or two, when she was doing training somewhere in New York State.
So it’s good to see her smiling face on “Jason’s” photo page. He describes her as “our physician’s assistant.” I do recall that she wanted to be a medic and was taking chemistry.
It is also true, as I said in a previous post, that when I heard Beth Custer’s song “Home” I was imagining it as an anti-war or “bring home the troops safely” and had a pet title for the song “Saving Remi Benson.”
God bless Remi and family and I hope she does get back to Alabama safely. Thank you, Remi, for your service to our country.
Pretty random coda but I still wear two t-shirts I bought on that trip. I had some cotton socks I bought at a gas station near the airport — I had packed for a weekend not going on the road with my client. I used to think of those socks as my “Alabama socks” and thought they had hermetic powers.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
I am assuming that is the same Remi. She was petite and had close-cropped natural hair. Also, in today’s New York Times I was concerned about an A1 story about a man from New York, a Private Chen, who the article said was hazed by his fellow servicemen and eventually died, perhaps by his own hand, in Afghanistan. I left a voice mail for our own veteran and former Dartmouth rugby player Agent Robert Parham of PAPD to see if he wanted to help me write something more substantive and pointed about this incident. I don’t see how we can have a positive impact in world affairs if our internal mechanisms still have so much racism and sexism. Or am I too easily fooled by cynical reporting? I did also hear Seymour Hersh lecture once about Sgt. William Calley and the My Lai incident.
Remi’s experience in our service we presume has nothing to do with the story I was concerned about. edit to add: Agent Parham and I traded voice messages and I hope to meet with him soon, mostly about public outreach for our local public safety officers here in Palo Alto.
After being asked several times if I have ever “googled” myself, I finally gave it a shot. To my surprise, there is the picture of me and an article about my brief encounter while travelling. What a surprise!
God bless you, Remi, that you saw my post! Thank you so much for your service to our country! I hope your mother is well. I recall it was around the time of her birthday that we met!