Tragic as the loss was, Thomas Drabinsky accomplished something that not a lot of people got to do: he died with his boots on and he would not be forgotten.

Jack had seen enough forgotten soldiers in his time. He’d tried to rectify this when he was still on the air, had used the last two minutes of his show to honor the fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan, to put names and faces to these men and women he so admired. It was a reminder to his viewers that the enemy they fought wasn’t some abstract notion, but a real, living danger to the western world. Nine/eleven was a decade past, and too many of us were becoming complacent-including and especially our so-called representatives in Washington.

He had even started a fund, raising money for the kids of fallen vets, and for training guide dogs-by prison inmates, no less-to aid those who had left arms, legs, eyes, and ears in the Mesopotamian war zones.

Jack checked with the hospital at nine A.M. Max was sleeping and her injuries weren’t serious. She had a gash on the side of her head that took twenty-seven stitches to close, but there was no concussion-her camera had taken the hit for her. It thanked her with a smack to the temple that looked, to Jack, like the recoil of a. 357 Holland amp; Holland Magnum. However, he was not surprised when she called early in the afternoon and told him that she wanted to get to recuperate at home. What she said, actually, was, “The deductible on the health coverage I was forced to buy is going to kill me faster than my injuries, so get me out of here.” She said she’d cleared it with her doctor, and calling a cab, Jack went and collected her.