This geocache is a tribute for all our brave soldiers, especally my best friend Carl, who is a real American hero. I placed it here because we grew up down the street and he showed me this trail years ago. And it was here in Ward that I found my first geocache.
Carl and I have been best friends our whole lives. He lived down the street from me, so I first met him when we were less than a year old. We went to the same preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school together and stayed close throughout. From drawing cartoons in our notebooks in fourth grade, to playing basketball and cross-country together, we really did it all.
When I first got into geocachng my freshman year of HS, I knew Carl would love it too. I remember him telling me that he had been looking for a treasure hunting hobby since he ws a kid and he immediately loved it. You might know him as cral1, his code name when he got a premium account. Our favorite type of caches were the high terrains and hard bushwhacks. We got a group of friends together almost every Saturday morning and within about a year or so we conquered all the hard bushwhacks in the area.
By the time we ran out of bushwhack caches, we got into the most extreme form of hiking we could find: mountain climbing. When we were 17 we stayed up at Pinkham Notch for a night and did some snowy hiking. From that point on we were hooked, almost to the point where the White Mountains became our second home. Carl's last year at home was filled with trips to the White Mountains with me. Within an 11-month span, Carl ended up climbing 12 of New Hampshire's 48 4,000 footers; I climbed 8 of them with him. The time I spent hiking and camping with him in the Whites are some of the best memories of my life and I'll never forget them.
Now Carl was one of those people that was born with a purpose and knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. From day one, he was a soldier. My first memories of him were him dressing up as a soldier for Halloween as a toddler, and his passion never faded. Last July he enlisted to serve in the US Army, but he doesn't have his sights set on just that. After completing basic training, Carl's lifelong goal is to become an Army Ranger and complete ranger school. On top of that, he wants to become a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, in which he is currently a blue belt.
Today is July 21, 2019, his 19th birthday. Perhaps more importantly, though, it's the day he left North Andover for good to start his Army journey. One of my birthday gifts to him was to show him this cache and have him sign the log. It is appropriately military themed, so please stick to this theme and do not trade or leave anything in the container, even TB's. There is a log in there that you'll have to search for to sign. And please make sure to put everything back.