Derek Baxter

His name was Derek Baxter. He was my cousin. We got along great! We liked to do a lot of the same things. He taught me so much about computers. He showed me so many tricks to it and we even built one! It was so amazing and I was so happy. Then he decided to join the navy.

When he was 18 he decided to join the navy. He made it in and after boot camp was stationed in Hawaii. When he came home we hung out and did a ton of stuff like biking. We traveled miles and went to so many cool places! When he went back I was counting the days until he got back. When he did we did a lot more stuff. Like for my 13th b-day He sent me a ton of ninja items. Then when he came home when I was 14 we battled it out. (Of course these are wooden, though) In the next couple of days he had to go back to the navy for his final session for he had already served 4 years.

Derek underwater (Derek put it on my computer)

When he was leaving we said our good byes and he set off with his brother to go to the airport so he could fly back. He called us to let us know that he had gotten there safely. So I was excited and we had e-mailed each other talking about stuff. He sent me some pictures about where he had gone and what he had done. It was amazing! He had this underwater camera and he showed me all these awesome things that he had seen. But then I couldn't get in contact with him and he stopped e-mailing me. So I assumed he was on a mission because he usually always checked his e-mail and would send e-mails back to me. Three days after his death I heard what happened and it hurt really bad and as most people do I tried to block it out by lying to myself and telling myself they were wrong. Because if you have lost someone close to you, you know how it feels. If you don't, you will be in a state of disbelief for a while then you will have to finally accept the fact and you will still have one part saying that they are all wrong even you know that it is the truth.

underwater starfish (Derek put it on my computer)

Even though he is gone, he did teach me lessons that I will remember forever and I will pass on. He was a great person, and he taught me to try to avoid fighting with people because what if it was the last time you saw that person? How would you feel if the last thing you said to the person was something bad? All the lessons that he taught me have changed me greatly. He died doing the thing that he loved and protecting our country. So I just want to say thank you to all of our troops and people protecting our country.