Say their names.
You hear these three words a lot, including around Memorial Day when the country stops all its craziness to remember those who paid the ultimate price in defense of our freedoms.
Still, sometimes words are not enough, especially to Gold Star families who worry that, particularly after they are gone, their loved one will no longer be remembered.
That’s why Bob and Mary Patterson of North Aurora started the Chris Patterson Foundation four years after their 20-year-old son was killed in action in Afghanistan on Jan. 2, 2012.
Since then the foundation has raised over $35,000, with most of that money going to scholarships for Fox Valley graduates pursuing a career in the performing arts, as was Chris, a music major at Valparaiso University and a member of the Indiana National Guard who talked his commanders into including him, an ROTC cadet, when his unit was deployed.
But to say their names is not the same as to see their faces, which is why the Illinois Patriot Guard Fallen Heroes Traveling Memorial Wall was created more than a decade ago as a way to connect more personally to the men and women behind the names.
Unfortunately, Patterson told me, that original project was dismantled, literally and figuratively, and the wall became little more than “rotting panels” stored inside of a barn.
And so, a few years ago the Chris Patterson Foundation took it over, once more gathering the photos of all 253 men and women who have given their lives in service to this country since 9/11.
It’s a staggering number, especially when these pictures are all displayed in one area, as they are on the Illinois Fallen Wall now at Oswego Village Hall through June 6.
Even more impactful is looking into the individual faces of these heroes, most of them painfully young, loved by their families and full of such potential for the future.
Like 20-year-old U.S. Army Spc. Brian Romines from the tiny town of Simpson, who was killed June 6, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq, when an explosive detonated near his vehicle, and whose photo, with a tear sliding down his face, is particularly haunting as a reminder of the sacrifices made and the pain left behind.
Or 21-year-old Andrew Meari of Plainfield, whose mother Denise Williams nearly brought me to tears of my own when talking about her “scary smart” only child, who went through three years of high school in four months and could speak multiple languages, including Arabic.
The gifted young man, who wanted to be a soldier since age 4 after witnessing the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, joined the Army 15 years later, figuring it would also be a way to eventually go back to school to become an attorney.
He was deployed to Afghanistan in May of 2010, and on Nov. 1 that year was killed by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle in the province of Kandahar. According to multiple news sources, he was trying to shield others in the unit from the blast when he took the full brunt of it.
It was a sacrifice that did not go unnoticed by survivors. Pfc. Philip Wysocki, who received the Silver Star for his actions during the vicious attack that followed, later told Williams her son was the “guardian angel protecting them from the incoming rounds as they protected his body.” And Felipe Pereira, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroics that day, honored him with his firstborn’s middle name.
Like all those in our area who made the ultimate sacrifice, Pfc. Andrew Meari did indeed come home a hero, with many medals, as well as his name on a stretch of Route 59 and a beautiful park in Plainfield.
As grateful as she is for these memorials, as Williams points out, “names have been on monuments from a thousand years ago, but how many do we remember?
“Every family’s greatest fear is that their child will be forgotten after they are gone. Who will remember their smile … who they looked like?” she asked. “Having their faces with their names gives us comfort knowing this is a strong visual connection people will carry away with them.
“When you see a face, you are looking at someone you grew up with or knew their family members at this age. It has a totally different impact,” she said, particularly when associated “with the price of war.”
For that reason, both these Gold Star parents encourage Fox Valley residents over the Memorial Day weekend to visit the Illinois Fallen Wall from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the lobby of Oswego Village Hall at 100 Parkers Mill in Oswego.
By all means, also celebrate Memorial Day with happiness. Crack open a beer. Have fun at a family barbecue. “And celebrate everything you have because it was paid for with the highest price,” insisted Williams.
“Those faces are the last vision in our minds at night and the first vision we see in the morning,” she added. “They remind us all that America is worth fighting for,” even when “the cost is unimaginable.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
