The week after Ryan died, in the midst of all the funeral planning, memorial service, and mortuary affairs, I was asked if I wanted to have an obituary written and printed in a local paper. Seeing as we were having his memorial service in San Antonio, Texas, which was a city where we had only lived briefly and his burial service was in my hometown (so he would remain near the kids and I), but not a place where Ryan had actually lived in, I did not see a point in having anything written or printed. Besides, I just was not in a state of mind to write anything cohesive or poignant about Ryan's life. So no obituary was written. Those things are for small towns, right? Like where others could see who had passed? Ryan was from Los Angeles, do people in those large cities read those things anyway? And why did I need to print Ryan's life, summarized into a small, impersonal paragraph, for random strangers to read?
Well, over a year later I was asked to write and share a brief background bio about Ryan for an upcoming TAPS Veterans Day event. I put it off until the last day (yestersay) because I guess I just didn't know what to write or it felt like I was reducing his life to an inadequate paragraph. But after I wrote it, I felt so proud of my beloved and I am actually glad I had a chance to think through his career and all he had so humbly accomplished, and write out this bio, - a long overdue obituary of sorts. It makes me happy and sad and oh, so very proud of my Ryan when I reflect on his life and how selflessly and seriously he took his service to our country. I put a copy of what I wrote below, as a way to preserve those words. So here is Ryan's bio / obituary, finally printed out and to be shared at a TAPS event we will attend on Veteran's day next month.
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Ryan P. Sweeney, USAF, was born on May 16, 1977 and died while serving for the 690th Network Support Squadron out of Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas on June 24, 2016.
In his over 16 years on active duty, he deployed to Saudi Arabia with the 608th Air Operations Center, served with the 10th Communications Squadron at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, taught air operation weapons systems at the 505th Training Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Florida, deployed to the Combined Air Operation Center in support of homeland defense and security after 9/11, deployed to both Saddam Airport Airbase and Alsalam Air Base, as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, served a term under the White House Communications Agency, and rebuilt a program for the Pentagon 811th Force Support Squadron.
He enlisted into the Air Force in April 2000, after attending Pasadena City College in Los Angeles County. He was born and raised in the Los Angeles area and no matter where he was stationed, always considered California his home. He was an amazing husband and father, always involved in all the activities of his children. He took his own life after a long hard-faught battle with depression and PTSD, leaving behind his wife, Jennifer, and his two children, a daughter, Kate, and a son, Charlie. At the time of death, he was also survived by his mother, Betty Sweeney, a brother, Josh Randall, who serves for the Army National Guard and his grandmother, Eunice Holder, of Orange County, California.
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