My father was a military-trained observer.

He honed that skill with 40-plus years of journalism.

He said many profound things in his time, but this one always stuck with me: “There’s nothing sadder than a young person’s funeral.”

So true. Death is so permanent. We are supposed to learn this when our grandparents pass away, not when young people die. So our small community of ski racing was rocked hard by the deaths of two U.S. Ski Team development athletes, now forever linked in our memories for perishing in the same avalanche in Austria: Ronnie Berlack and Bryce Astle.

We certainly add our condolences to family and friends. The entire ski racing community reels when these reminders are dropped on us. It never seems fair, it never seems right. Ronnie and Bryce will not be the last to give their lives to the sport of skiing. The only thing that could prevent similar tragedy in the future is to not ski, and that’s not happening. Danger is part of what attracts us to the sport. We will leave the tributes to these enthusiastic young athletes to those who knew them best. We have read several moving tributes already.

Journalists are a cynical bunch. We keep track of morbid things. A former editor had a book on his work desk of all the disasters in the district the paper he worked at had seen. That big fire in ’59, the train wreck of ’66, the blizzard of ’77. It saved a lot of time when the next disaster came along. The book of those who lost their lives to skiing has many pages. The only true sadness is that it takes a fresh death to make us revisit them. Here are a few.

In 1959, Canadian John Simmelink crashed near the end of the Arlberg-Kandahar downhill at Garmisch on a foggy day when a binding apparently released and he fell into a rocky gully, sustaining serious head injuries despite his leather helmet. The next season helmets (not leather) were required for Olympic racing.

The year 1964 was a tragic one in the sport. Australian teen Ross Milne struck a tree during a training run for the Olympic downhill, skiing off course — according to some reports, to avoid other athletes who had congregated on course. His skill level was called into question and no action was taken against the race organizers.

At the end of the same season Buddy Werner and Barbi Henneberg were killed by an avalanche while filming at St. Moritz.

Michel Bozon, 20, died racing downhill at Megeve in 1970. At least his demise was quick. Among the saddest of all ski racing deaths was the story of Leonardo David. At just 18, he had already gained the attention of the Italian federation. He was a very promising Italian skier who crashed at Lake Placid and was in coma for six years before finally dying of a heart attack. Turned out he had sustained a head injury well before arriving at Lake Placid.

Finland’s first stand-out alpine racer, Sara Mustonen, went way too young, falling into a crevasse at Hintertux when she was 16, already a World Championship veteran. On the other end of the scale, Sepp Walcher completed a successful World Cup career, then lost his life when he crashed in a benefit race in his hometown of Schladming.

Spain’s Duke Alfonso, the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee and a FIS member, skied into a cable designed to hold a banner over a trail at Beaver Creek in 1989 at those World Championships. The trail was closed so the banner could be attached.

Young Austrian Gernot Reinstadler, out to prove himself at Wengen, skied into the nets in the final S-curve with his ski getting hung up in the net. Reinstadler slid to the finish, briefly picked his head up and looked uphill at the smear of blood he had left on the track, passed out and never regained consciousness.

Ulrike Maier died of a broken neck when her ski hooked up at what was considered a benign section of the Garmisch track and spun her off-course into snowmaking apparatus, Jan. 29, 1994. Her daughter, Melanie, was 5 years old at the time.

In October 2001, Frenchwoman Regine Cavagnoud crashed at full speed into German coach Markus Anwander on the Pitztaler glacier where World Cup skiers were training. Both Cavagnoud and the coach suffered serious skull injuries. They were rushed by helicopter to the university hospital in Innsbruck. She died in hospital two days after accident.

Another promising development team skier from the U.S., Shelley Glover, died three days after suffering a major head injury in a training crash at Mt. Bachelor in 2004. She was 17.

There are more. Plenty more. With freeskiing enticing more skiers into the extreme elements of our sport, Doug Coombs, Shane McConkey, Sarah Burke, CR Johnson, Nik Zorcic and JP Auclair are among the more recent to pay the ultimate price.

Modern safety innovations constantly seek to minimize risk in the sport, and many of the aforementioned accidents have led directly to measures that have likely prevented future casualties.

We can and should lament the passing of Berlack and Astle. Their youthful enthusiasm for life and skiing alone makes them worthy of our sorrow.

Dad was right, there is nothing sadder than a funeral for a young person. Here are best wishes to all the young athletes who attended services for them. Cope well, and carry their legacy in your pockets. Be strong and remember to celebrate them.