In the Line of Fire: How My Best Friend’s Death Taught Me to Live

Facing survivor’s guilt, finding redemption, and learning to embrace life after the ultimate sacrifice

Benjamin Sledge
Human Parts
Published in
8 min readMay 24, 2023

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Memorial to the fallen while in Afghanistan | Photo courtesy of author

Kyle was supposed to be the writer, not me.

My mom often referred to Kyle as her “third son” when introducing him to family friends because he would visit my…

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Benjamin Sledge
Human Parts

Multi-award winning author | Combat wounded veteran | Mental health specialist | Occasional geopolitical intel | Graphic designer | https://benjaminsledge.com