Drake (Yogi) Paul was from the East side of Chicago with his younger brother Jared. Both of the brothers played college Lacrosse and enlisted in the military, Drake an Army Ranger and Jared doing his residency in the Navy. Drake was deployed in 2004 and did three tours in Afghanistan. 

During my first tour as a Ranger, I was stationed at the Gunnar position on top of armored cars. In August 2005, we were pursuing operations in the Uruzgan province. I was on the lookout through the narrow streets as my platoon sifted through the city for danger. We saw this nice-looking tire roll by. A newer-looking rim and a deep-treaded tire, which was unusual because people would usually never leave something that nice behind. As I peered over the shield surrounding me, my driver and I quickly realized that the tire was an explosive targeted at us. We narrowly escaped and to this day that is definitely the most eye-opening experience I have ever had.

I often think about that experience, almost every day. Not in a traumatic haunting kind of way but more so as a lesson. From that, I learned what the Value of life to me was and how I should cherish it no matter what, and I understand it is an overused theme of life but what people don’t understand is that it’s completely true in every aspect of how it’s said.

The story told by my former coach is one that I am holding close to me. It puts into perspective how fast life can be taken and how important it is to cherish what we have at the moment.