MSG Tony Yost

[Warrior-Mentor]

RIP Tony.

JM

[ssgglover]

Tony was larger then life, and a PT animal.
I just remember thinking how the hell is this giant, running and rucking us in the dirt.
Take a knee Tony, you've done your best.
Godspeed Brother...

[Tico]

RIP Tony

[brianksain]

Tony was on our roster at AmericanSnipers. Always trying to get better gear for his guys and those he instructed.

One of my guys sent me this link:

http://www.militarycity.com/valor/1367539.html

RIP MSG.

BK

[scribbler]

A Widow’s Journey

Baby steps

By Kevin Maurer

Staff writer

Joann Yost can’t find the words to tell her 2-year-old son that his father is dead.

It has been seven months and Yost still struggles when A.J. asks where his father is.

Sometimes she says he is at work. Others, she just says he will be gone for a long time.

If you ask A.J., he’ll tell you his daddy is at work and probably point to a picture on the family’s refrigerator. The photo shows a smiling A.J. in his father’s lap.

A.J. just wants him home. One Sunday last month, A.J. was misbehaving and Yost took him to his room.

“I want my daddy!” he screamed at her.

“I do, too!” she yelled back.

The photo on the refrigerator records the last time that Joann Yost and A.J. saw him. It was taken at Green Ramp on Pope Air Force, where soldiers gather to board planes for deployments.

It was Joann’s last chance to hold her husband, her last kiss. Now, every time she looks into her son’s blue eyes, all she sees is Tony.

Master Sgt. Tony Yost, 39, was looking for insurgents in a building in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul when he was killed in November. He was a team sergeant with the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group.

“My future as I know it came to a halt that day,” Joann Yost said.

She has been through Christmas, a wedding anniversary and her 40th birthday without him. As she struggles to find her new place in the world, Yost faces her first Memorial Day — a day set aside to honor those killed in the country’s wars, including the more than 2,700 who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yost said it is the hardest day of all.

***

A military widow’s story starts with a knock at the door.

Three soldiers — one is always a chaplain — in their dress uniforms stand at the door. “We regret to inform you ...”

Yost has flashbacks.

“I see the men that come to my door every day,” she said. “I didn’t believe it. Maybe they are going to tell me it was somebody else. In reality, I knew why they were here.”

When the knock came, Yost was headed to a baby shower. She was in a good mood. Her husband had sent her an e-mail that morning. It was upbeat, full of hope.

“I would like to get you a nice leather jacket,” he wrote. “What would you like? Would you like a Turkish rug for the house? I have a sweet connection here in Mosul, I think I told you? It is going to be a new years X-mas for us at the Yost residence. So put in your wish list to Santa Tony.”

The next three weeks were a blur.

She couldn’t sleep. People streamed in and out of her house. They came with flowers, food and tears. At night, when the house was quiet, she cried.

Three weeks after his death, Yost buried her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.

The coffin was closed. She never saw his body.

His fellow soldiers and her friends told her it wasn’t something she needed to see. To this day, she struggles with the decision not to take a last look.

For a while after the funeral, she told herself that Tony was on a secret mission and that the story that he was dead was a way of protecting him. That myth was shattered when the survivors from Tony’s A-team returned from Iraq. They came to the house after Christmas to pay their respects.

“I had to face the reality that he was not coming back,” she said.

***

Yost grew up in a military family. Her father is a 35-year Army veteran who served in special operations and conventional units.

She met Tony at a gym a few weeks before Sept. 11, 2001. She instantly took to him.

“Tony and I were perfect together. We were soul mates,” she said. “He was bigger than life. He was 10 feet tall and bulletproof.”

They were married on Valentine’s Day three years ago.

Both of them already had children from past marriages. Yost raised her 18-year-old son, Donovan, alone. She had looked forward to bringing up A.J. with Tony.

“I am not afraid of being on my own,” she said. “I don’t want to be.”

Now, it is only Friday nights that break up her loneliness. That’s when she will often head to Charlie Mike’s, a pub on North Reilly Road favored by Special Forces soldiers.

Yost likes to go to Charlie Mike’s because she is among friends there. Some of the people there knew her and her husband as a couple. Some just knew her husband. Almost all know what happened.

On a recent Friday night, Yost was dressed in a beige summer dress. Holding a beer, she danced slowly on the bar with a group of women — a common occurrence in the pub.

She seemed lost in the music and her movements.

“I want to be treated like a lady,” she had said over the rock music blaring out of the corner jukebox. “I want someone to open my door. Take me to dinner.”

But for now, anyway, that is out of the question. That’s a lesson she learned from Theresa Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick knows what Yost is going through; she lost her husband 14 years ago. She is Yost’s confidante, mentor and drinking buddy on Fridays.

One night when the two were at the bar, a Special Forces soldier was making small talk with Yost. She went to use the restroom and the soldier asked Fitzpatrick who Yost was. Fitzpatrick told the soldier that she was Tony Yost’s wife. The soldier said immediately that Yost was “off limits.”

When Yost got back to the bar, the soldier was gone and she was confused. All she wanted to do was talk.

Fitzpatrick had to explain to Yost that during the first year of being a widow, no one would date her. Most guys connected with the Special Forces won’t even talk to her.

“By the second year, you’re dating,” Fitzpatrick told her. “But you never truly give in, and if a man gets too close you push them away.”

It takes about five years before you can have a normal relationship, Fitzpatrick said.

Yost sometimes feels as if she is wearing a giant “W” on her forehead. She is tired of people feeling sorry for her. The pitying looks of well-wishers enrage her. Some of the couple’s friends from the past don’t call any more, but she says they talk about her. Whether she is seen out having a good time or staying locked away in her house, they gossip.

“You are ridiculed for trying to find your place in society again,” Yost said. “I feel like I should be accepted. I am doing the same things I would have done if Tony was alive.”

***

Framed on the wall of the bar is a photo of Tony that she likes to point out. He is looking at the camera, his rifle against his shoulder. He looks happy.

Yost says she is not bitter or angry about her husband’s death.

“He would have done this 10 times over,” she said.

But still the little things bring back the pain.

She took A.J. to a hockey game in the winter, but couldn’t get through the national anthem.

“When I look at the flag, it symbolizes my husband and everybody else who has died for our country,” she said.

Songs on the radio that remind her of Tony bring on tears.

Tony Yost was an Apache and was proud of his heritage. The other soldiers on his A-team called him “Chief.”

Yost said that when she and Tony were driving to or from their house in Raeford, he would often see a hawk circling in the sky. He would tell his wife that it was his hawk.

A hawk now circles their home, Yost said. To her, it’s Tony watching over the family, urging her to go on with her life.

She has, with baby steps.

In the months after his death, she bought new furniture, a new car and new sod for the yard. Some are things the couple talked about before Tony left.

But even as she moves on, she clings to some things from the past. Yost recently bought a new white SUV. She had to have a GMC Envoy, the exact model Tony wanted to buy for her when he got back.

Yost dreads Memorial Day. She knows she will not want to get out of bed. But she’ll get up, put out the flag and get A.J. breakfast.

She’ll think of Tony and she’ll look outside for a hawk.

[Jaeger1980]

Rest in Peace.

Respectfully
Jäger

[Blue]

I spent Memorial Day at Arlington with a friend of MSG Yost's, and of course we stopped by his grave to pay our respects along with other fallen SF warriors.

RIP, MSG.

[Razor]

Thanks, Blue. I appreciate you taking the time to say hello for us.

[Blue]

It was the least I could do, and an honor. He has several brothers around him. As Gen. Patton said, “Let me not mourn for the men who have died fighting, but rather let me be glad that such heroes have lived.”

[Rumblyguts]

Please pardon the intrusion...

I'm passing on some info that was posted at another forum roughly a month ago, but it doesn't apear to be mentioned here.

An appeal was posted for friends of MSG Yost, or those wishing to pay respects, to visit a memorial website in his honor. It has a guestbook for those who wish to write something, and that book is viewed by his daughter and family. I'm sure they'd appreciate a kind word.

Respectfuly

site: http://www.andyyost.com

[Texian]

RIP, Warrior

[Basicload]

Damn! I did not hear about this.

I knew MSG Yost from when he worked at the Weapon's Sergeant course. I went over by the wind tunnel and talked to him on several occasions and I gave him a KAC MRE Ras kit for his work gun. We talked about him building me a 1911 at some point.

I really liked him from my dealings with him.

RIP bro.

[sitfly36]

Thanks for teaching me how to skydive bro

Fallen not forgotten!

[greenberetTFS]

God Bless,Rest in Peace Warrior.......

He was just a simple soldier and his ranks are growing thin
But his presence should remind us; we may need his like again,
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.
If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.

Perhaps just a simple headline in the paper that might say:
OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING, FOR A SOLDIER DIED TODAY. (author unknown)

The passing of our soldiers often go unnoticed and unsung by most of the world, remembered only by family and friends. Wish it were not so. May this Warrior,RIP, his family will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Big Teddy

[MtnGoat]

Jack or Crown Brother.. You missed Chief