Posted by Mike Smith on February 3, 2009:

Bob Bryce was quite simply the best friend I ever had. We got to know each other as more than just classmates in the same company when he responded to a note I posted on the b-board looking for someone to lift weights with. He was stronger than me by far but rather than harrass me he encouraged me. And so this started the friendship that has survived even though he has not. Bob and I were roommates a couple of times and he was the best kind of guy you could have around during the academic and military rigors we encountered while at the academy. I found out real quick he was smarter than me too. But he was more than willing to lend a hand in that area as well. Bob was so easy to get along with. One time while rooming together we got into a bit of an argument and I realized immediately whatever it was it was my fault because he had never gotten angry with me in all the months we had been roomies. Bob's home was northern Virginia, about half the distance to my home in North Carolina. On several occasions when we could get away he invited me to spend the weekend with his family and they practically adopted me. To this day I still call his mother my "Mom #2." After graduation we had the good fortune to serve together in the 82nd Airborne Division and since we were then close to my hometown he got to know my family. Our paths crossed many times. He was in my wedding and I attended his change of command. Bob was a fine officer and a talented aviator, rated in several aircraft. We were close enough in Germany to get together on weekends and holidays. We even managed to link up once during Desert Storm even though by then we were not in the same unit. When Bob was reassigned back to the States after me I hoped for more of the same even if he was at Fort Rucker and I was at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Fate intervened, however, and Bob fell ill with leukemia. Bob approached this challenge as he had all others, with patience, determination, and even a sense of humor. After months of treatment and two bone marrow transplants Bob had almost beat it. He was able to leave his hospital room and watch the Super Bowl in more pleasant surroundings but then suddenly he was gone. As the executor of his will I flew out to the VA oncology center in Seattle. Many times his family and I heard how Bob had touched so many on the staff there. It did not matter if you were Chief of Oncology or simply an orderly, Bob treated you not only as important part of the team but as a wonderful part of humanity. And so now it is almost fourteen years to the day that we lost him. After all this time there is still hardly a day that goes by that I don't think about Bob - my best friend, the brother I never had. We love you and miss you.

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