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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative, recording and sharing stories of service members and their families. Patrick Bryant, Paul Mott and Kevin Godfrey, childhood friends from Webster, Florida - a small town with fewer than a thousand people. They graduated high school in the late 1980s. All three of them joined the military. And at StoryCorps, Paul sat down with Kevin and Patrick to remember the moment when they first became friends.
PAUL MOTT: My earliest memory of these two gentlemen was in the fourth grade at Webster Elementary in Miss Gridley's (ph) class.
I grew up with the Jewish faith. It was Yom Kippur. My grandmother's rabbi gave me a yarmulke to wear.
So one day, we were in line, and there was this gentleman. He walked up behind me and he slapped a bejeebers out of me...
(LAUGHTER)
MOTT: ...And knocked that yamaka off my head. And I'll never forget, these two gentlemen came up, and they picked up the yarmulke, hand it to me, got between me and the bully, and they told him, you don't do that. And it left an indelible mark on my life.
PATRICK BRYANT: For me, it was the right thing to do. You my brother, and I don't want to see nothing happen to you. Same with Kevin. Something's going on with Kevin, I'm stepping in.
MOTT: We were friends ever since. And from that day forward, we played on Little League together.
BRYANT: Yes.
MOTT: Worked together.
KEVIN GODFREY: Partied together (laughter).
MOTT: Partied together.
BRYANT: Yeah.
MOTT: That's right. And joined the armed forces after high school.
GODFREY: Yep.
MOTT: Although we did go into different branches.
BRYANT: My dad gave me a choice. He said go to the military, go to college, or you get out of my house (laughter). So I went to the Navy. I was supposed to go to San Diego, but they came back to me and said, oh, you're going to Orlando, 50 miles up the road. I went to the Navy to go see the world.
GODFREY: And you just went to the backyard?
BRYANT: Yeah. I went to the backyard.
(LAUGHTER)
GODFREY: I was a Patriot missile crew member, shooting the Scud missiles down. That was my job. I got to enjoy a few historical things like the Berlin Wall coming down. That was one of the neatest things that...
BRYANT: Oh, you were there for that?
GODFREY: Yeah.
BRYANT: Oh, wow.
GODFREY: I actually got a piece of it. Mom still have it. I sent a piece to her. But, man, when I went to war, oh, my God.
MOTT: I got my first Purple Heart, was in Kuwait.
GODFREY: Wow.
MOTT: It was during the Gulf War when I got shot. Yeah. And I know, Kevin, you've experienced this as well. We've all lost friends on active duty, but I've noticed that I've lost more friends since I've been home. The vast majority of these men succumb to the invisible illness, PTSD. And I suffer with it myself, especially when I first got home from Afghanistan. There was some horribly, horribly low spots.
BRYANT: Dark times.
MOTT: Dark times. And I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for you gentlemen. It took people that knew me to bring me out to the light.
GODFREY: Yes, sir.
BRYANT: Yeah.
MOTT: I'm not going to kid you. Of course I still have dark times, but we can talk about it...
GODFREY: Yeah.
BRYANT: That's it.
MOTT: ...You know.
BRYANT: You know, even when you go into a dark place, we'll call each other like, man, you let me know where you at. We coming.
MOTT: That's right.
BRYANT: No matter what I'm going through...
MOTT: That's right.
BRYANT: ...I'm there for Paul. I'm there for Kevin or anyone I call friend.
MOTT: That's right.
BRYANT: They're more than friends. They're my brothers.
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SIMON: Navy Seaman Patrick Bryant, Army Spc. Kevin Godfrey and Army Staff Sgt. Paul Mott for StoryCorps in Tampa, Florida.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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