00:00 - This program has been paid for by the sponsor and does not reflect

00:03 - the views of PCN.

00:36 - Oh oh.

00:43 - 217 270027 down.

00:52 - What I'd like people to know about

00:53 - Tristan was he was a man of service.

00:57 - They say that when my son was killed,

00:59 - he had a day off to stay on base.

01:02 - And his best friend in his unit

01:06 - had a really tough couple of weeks.

01:09 - So he switched duty with his friends so his friend could

01:14 - rest on base.

01:15 - And he took his duty out that day.

01:18 - They were coming back to base.

01:20 - They were in a Bradley fighting vehicle, and

01:24 - they were a mile or two from the base,

01:28 - and they got a call that they were not

01:30 - getting radio messages back from a M1 Abrams.

01:34 - So they had to turn around and go back out

01:37 - to find out what was going on with this tank.

01:41 - And it was on their way back out to the tank that they went over an IED.

01:47 - There was,

01:51 - Four of them

01:52 - killed in the back of the Bradley,

01:55 - one of them that was seriously injured.

01:57 - He survived.

02:00 - Everything that he did was.

02:06 - About

02:06 - service to the community and to his friends.

02:10 - And during high school,

02:14 - they have a, organization that tracks community service hours.

02:20 - It's his senior year.

02:21 - He won the award for the most number of service hours

02:25 - ever recorded for the school.

02:28 - It was three times the previous record.

02:33 - And one of the organizations that he was involved

02:36 - in was an organization called Spiritual Warfare Effectiveness

02:40 - Training, which was, weekend Retreat

02:43 - for men that helps men

02:47 - figure out how to live a life of integrity and service.

02:51 - He went through it.

02:52 - I believe it was when he was 14 years old,

02:56 - and he came back as staff for every single weekend

03:01 - that they had, until he went off into the military.

03:04 - He was very spiritual

03:08 - guy and driven by that.

03:12 - His lieutenant told me that Thurston

03:15 - would always come find him before meals so they could pray together.

03:19 - He would do anything for you.

03:45 - Gold star

03:46 - families really began during World War One.

03:49 - And there was this tradition of.

03:50 - Of putting a blue star in your window.

03:54 - If a family member was serving.

03:56 - If that family member was killed

03:59 - or lost in combat, you would replace it with a gold star

04:03 - so that the community would know that you had lost someone.

04:07 - In 1947, Congress permits the creation

04:12 - of a Gold Star family, a lapel pin

04:16 - most commonly worn by fathers on their suits.

04:19 - And it's another way to signify to the community

04:23 - of the sacrifice and service of a

04:27 - member of the military and the cost his family has paid.

04:32 - The big sort of change for Gold Star families

04:35 - is related really, to Colonel Hal Moore's wife.

04:40 - Colonel Hal Moore was given the job of figuring out how to use helicopters

04:44 - in Vietnam.

04:45 - The Air Cavalry and his wife was back home.

04:51 - You know, the base at which he was stationed.

04:53 - And when members of Moore's unit were killed,

04:58 - the yellow cab with the telegram would be sent around

05:02 - and Howard Moore's wife and other wives in the community

05:07 - thought it was just an awful way to be notified.

05:10 - This is Moore contacted the cab company

05:12 - and asked them to deliver all death notices directly to her,

05:16 - and she would go around with the other wives and, you know, deliver the news.

05:20 - It began to spur the military to realize

05:24 - that it needed to be responsible

05:27 - for some of this stuff.

05:30 - And hence

05:31 - how they began to create their notification services of.

05:35 - Rather than sending out a yellow cab with a telegram.

05:38 - They would send out a notification officer

05:42 - to be there for the family to help the family

05:45 - walk through the necessary paperwork for that service.

05:48 - Members benefits, and for the benefits that come to the family.

05:53 - So it really has been sort of an evolutionary process

05:57 - from a pretty cold delivery of a telegram

06:02 - to something that at

06:03 - least is more caring to the families

06:07 - and the families themselves have organized.

06:09 - So you now have Gold Star families across the United States

06:13 - that look to take care of other gold Star families.

06:24 - A Gold Star family is a family

06:26 - who lost a loved one in service to our country.

06:31 - In my case, it was my son.

06:36 - Captain Brian Fons,

06:38 - 28 years old, serving in Iraq.

06:42 - He was killed on September 18th, 2003.

06:47 - Being a Gold Star family is a very exclusive club

06:51 - and I think to the person

06:54 - would do anything to give up that membership

06:57 - is not something any of them strive for.

07:00 - Their son

07:02 - or their daughter

07:04 - or their spouse or their sibling stood up

07:09 - and were some of our best citizens and want to serve our nation.

07:13 - But it's not just the service member who serves.

07:16 - The family serves as well.

07:20 - As the

07:20 - Gold Star family and as Gold Star father.

07:24 - What I would like for the people to know

07:27 - is that we're human, and we'd like to talk about our heroes.

07:31 - We'd like to talk about our sons and daughters.

07:34 - We'd like to everybody

07:37 - to know what their name was and what they did.

07:40 - It's important that we don't forget who they are

07:45 - and why they joined and what they were doing.

07:49 - Gold star families are so important.

07:53 - Most people, a lot of people

07:54 - don't even know who Gold Star families are.

07:58 - A lot of people in my world don't know who they are

08:00 - until I tell them I didn't know who they were.

08:03 - I knew who they were, but I didn't know that there was a name

08:06 - and that they suffered.

08:07 - And that, you know, that this is an ongoing suffering,

08:11 - the loss of their child most of the time in a very tragic way.

08:17 - And most of them, because

08:20 - they were fighting for our country, for our freedoms.

08:23 - Freedom is not free.

08:25 - I could say that 5000 times.

08:28 - It's really important to know what a gold star is.

08:30 - Even our military don't know. It's very sad.

08:34 - Even the saying in which gold stars is,

08:39 - something nobody ever wants to be.

08:41 - Nobody wants to give this gold star pin or fall to flag.

08:44 - It's the worst, you know, the most horrible thing in the world.

08:48 - Barring a child.

08:51 - It's great to see, first of all,

08:53 - that the word family has been included in this longest time.

08:57 - I only heard about Gold Star Mothers.

09:00 - No disrespect to them, but

09:02 - it took a whole family to raise these individual veterans.

09:07 - It's a great thing to see that the families are recognized

09:13 - for the sacrifices that they made then,

09:15 - and what they continue to make with the loss of their loved ones.

09:20 - I try to teach the little ones.

09:22 - I try to tell them when I explain about gold stars and gold star families

09:28 - and how much they've endured in suffering by losing someone they've loved so much.

09:33 - A child, a sister, brother, a grandchild, a niece and nephew.

09:38 - It's it's something

09:40 - that most of us will never understand.

09:43 - The people didn't die because they were sick.

09:45 - I mean, some got sick and died, obviously,

09:48 - but most of them died in horribly tragic deaths.

09:52 - Sometimes parents never even got to have the remains

09:55 - of their loved ones.

09:58 - And it's so important that we acknowledge

10:02 - these families and let them know that we are there for them.

10:05 - And that their children did not die in vain.

10:12 - Please ask me about my hero

10:15 - as a gold Star mother and a Gold Star family.

10:18 - We are so afraid that they will be forgotten.

10:22 - My son, Petty Officer First Class Michael Strange, was killed in action

10:27 - August 6th, 2011, along with 29 other brave Americans embarked.

10:32 - The Warrior Dog.

10:33 - Michael was born and raised in ocean only section of Philadelphia

10:37 - and Port Richmond area of Philadelphia.

10:41 - He attended Saint Bart's Grade School,

10:43 - and then went on to graduate from North Catholic High School.

10:48 - My son was born on Veteran's Day in 1974.

10:53 - I believe he was born to be a soldier at the age of 12.

10:58 - He he found the Civil Air Patrol,

11:01 - and he knew from that moment what he wanted to do when he grew up.

11:06 - What I want people to remember about my brother is that he was a true patriot.

11:11 - He gave his life to our country

11:14 - because he believed in what he was doing.

11:16 - He died doing what he loved more than anything in the world.

11:22 - As a mother and

11:23 - a father and a brother and a sister, we will not forget them.

11:27 - But we're afraid that our family or the community or the public will forget them.

11:32 - So please ask us stories.

11:34 - We want to talk about them.

11:36 - We want to keep them alive in our hearts and in our souls forever.

11:41 - My son was Benjamin Moore.

11:43 - He grew up in Bordentown City.

11:46 - He loved his town and his community.

11:48 - So he joined the firehouse at 16 Hope Hose Humane number one.

11:54 - He came a volunteer firefighter went through the,

11:58 - scoring for that and also for EMT.

12:03 - My brother Tom was very good at school.

12:06 - Well-liked in the neighborhood

12:10 - and outside of the neighborhood.

12:13 - He had the potential to.

12:15 - He was still in good things, doing everything a young man should have done

12:18 - before he went off to the war.

12:21 - Michael was an ambitious kid at the early age

12:23 - as he was delivering newspapers in Philadelphia, cutting grass,

12:28 - and then, of course, going to the local gym right away.

12:32 - He found in the movie Rocky started doing push ups,

12:36 - I guess, about eighth grade, and he started doing push ups off the steps.

12:40 - Then he started with the one arm push ups and then he went

12:44 - by was in North Catholic.

12:46 - He got a job at Richmond, Westmoreland, Burgess Tavern in 10th grade.

12:51 - He always hustled.

12:52 - Always took care of his younger brother and sisters.

12:56 - Michael was my oldest brother.

12:59 - He was very strict.

13:01 - Growing up, told me who I could hang out with to work on what I could do.

13:06 - He was always a leader.

13:07 - He was smart, funny,

13:10 - charismatic.

13:13 - My brother was Corporal Michael J.

13:15 - Crescents, a medal of honor recipient and of Philadelphia.

13:19 - He was the only Medal of Honor recipient that was awarded

13:23 - the medal during the Vietnam conflict.

13:25 - That was, raised in Philadelphia.

13:27 - Born and raised in Philadelphia in the west of Wayne section.

13:31 - His goal to be an officer never wavered.

13:35 - All through middle school. High school.

13:38 - He went to Penn State and was an Army ROTC,

13:44 - and in 1996, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

13:49 - Growing up with Michael, once he joined the service,

13:53 - he would do a lot of surprise visits home.

13:56 - One time he came to a keg party.

13:57 - I was at.

13:59 - Walked in through the door, shut the music, all grabbed

14:03 - me, purse my boyfriend out, took me home to my mom's house.

14:08 - Still, to this day, I don't

14:09 - know how he knew where I was that night, but he would pop up here

14:13 - and there on his home visits and we would celebrate.

14:18 - 911 happened.

14:20 - He was just about a junior in, school,

14:25 - and that really affected him.

14:27 - And, he always said to

14:31 - me and his mother that he wanted to do something about it.

14:35 - So in 2009, Penn enlisted in the Army.

14:41 - As a mom, I was scared.

14:43 - I was very afraid.

14:45 - But as a mom, I also knew

14:47 - I had to cut those apron strings and let him fly.

14:50 - So I couldn't stop him.

14:53 - Whenever Michael put his mind to, he accomplished.

14:57 - And it was really amazing.

14:59 - I guess in like, third grade, we really knew

15:03 - Michael was town it for what he did for the military.

15:07 - And it took off once he joined the United States Navy.

15:11 - I can take comfort

15:13 - in knowing that at the time of his death,

15:16 - he was living his dream.

15:19 - U.S. Army officer, company commander,

15:23 - leading his soldiers, trying to keep them safe.

15:28 - At the time of his death, he was in pursuit of what he believed

15:32 - to be a threat to his company.

15:37 - My brother was an exceptional human being.

15:40 - He throughout school excelled academically.

15:44 - He was always very into sports and bettering himself.

15:50 - In fact, when he was in seventh grade, he joined the wrestling team

15:55 - and he started, but he got pinned every single match.

16:00 - The first year he took that and decided,

16:05 - I'm going to, I'm going to better myself.

16:07 - He started lifting weights and by ninth grade

16:09 - he was the regional champion and the entire region for wrestling.

16:13 - He was a rope clearance crew.

16:15 - He ran, and rap raps of mine.

16:19 - Resistant machine that clears the road for the infantry to get in for any battle.

16:24 - They were the first ones in.

16:27 - When an improvised explosive device.

16:34 - Killed him.

16:35 - Along with his sergeant, Omar Aceves

16:39 - and the gunner, Jared King.

16:43 - You learn a lot about your child after they die.

16:45 - People come and share stories.

16:48 - We learned that my son would always

16:51 - take the time to help others, no matter what.

16:55 - At Civil Air Patrol, if there was a young cadet who was struggling with PT,

17:00 - he would always spend extra time with them.

17:04 - And we heard that over and over and over again

17:08 - how giving and kind he was, his fellow soldiers.

17:12 - Have a great deal of respect for him.

17:15 - I think the words were the quintessential professional.

17:19 - He was liked and admired by all.

17:22 - He was a wonderful father.

17:24 - He was a wonderful friend to his friends.

17:27 - He was a wonderful son, and he was a wonderful brother to me.

17:32 - My brother

17:33 - was the light of any situation we had, any event we had in our family.

17:38 - He would make everybody laugh.

17:39 - He was just so full of life and such a

17:43 - an exceptional person that through his losses,

17:48 - sometimes unfathomable.

17:51 - Since Michael's death,

17:52 - I just I lost that guidance,

17:56 - lost my hero.

17:58 - I lost my big brother.

18:01 - It's like a big piece of me.

18:05 - In 1968,

18:06 - in the summer, I was posted to Philadelphia

18:10 - and was in a detachment of about eight officers.

18:14 - All of us had been to Vietnam

18:17 - at least once at that point in time,

18:20 - and we were on a roster to notify

18:25 - next of kin and to assist our families in receiving their loved ones,

18:31 - as well as filing for the necessary

18:35 - benefits that they were due.

18:38 - In that process, that process comprised of two agreements.

18:43 - First was the notification of next of kin.

18:48 - We would receive

18:49 - notification from the Army headquarters,

18:53 - as to a potential deceased soldier

18:57 - or airman or marine, etc..

19:01 - From the moment we get

19:02 - that call and make that casualty run,

19:05 - the family is devastated.

19:08 - They're never going to be the same again.

19:10 - They know that their loved one is not coming back.

19:12 - They don't know how to handle the grief initially.

19:15 - It takes a long while to get over something like that

19:17 - because it's something that's just unexpected to them.

19:20 - When the Casualty Assistance Officer knocks at your door,

19:24 - the impact is you tell them to go away.

19:28 - You know why they're there.

19:31 - You don't want to hear it.

19:33 - In my case, I remember crumbling to the floor

19:38 - and then.

19:40 - And then it's just a whirlwind.

19:42 - I think for me, I was by myself.

19:45 - We had four hours to to make the initial notification

19:50 - of the next of kin, and the next of kin was determined by an emergency data card,

19:55 - and we would secure the services, chaplain, where possible,

20:01 - we would go to the home, of course, seek entry.

20:05 - The first thing we verified was that the people who

20:10 - we were with were, in fact, the

20:13 - next of kin. We.

20:19 - I tried to

20:19 - reach out to Bryan's dad rather than have him

20:23 - wait until his workday was finished to find out

20:28 - the impact.

20:29 - When I notified my daughter's.

20:32 - It was just terrible.

20:34 - I notified my oldest daughter, and she became hysterical over the phone.

20:40 - And then I was afraid to notify my youngest daughter

20:45 - being on those casualty runs.

20:47 - It's not something that anybody volunteers for.

20:49 - It's something you're assigned to.

20:51 - And it's.

20:52 - I don't know how to explain it.

20:53 - It's something that you don't get over either.

20:55 - And I don't know how the, the, officers or the chaplain,

21:01 - can do it over and over and over and not have some effect in their lives.

21:07 - Something that's, very painful to listen to.

21:11 - The families.

21:14 - You can hear the wails from outside.

21:17 - No, it's not something I'd ever want to do again.

21:21 - It hurts all around.

21:24 - With the family.

21:26 - It hurts them the deepest.

21:28 - The notification officer will refer to a follow up visit from another.

21:32 - The second part of it was a casualty

21:35 - assistance officer, which began,

21:38 - essentially when the loved one was,

21:42 - in the Philadelphia area.

21:46 - We would then work with the family

21:49 - to determine, you know, what they wanted by way of interment,

21:54 - whether it was in a veterans cemetery or they had their own burial plot.

22:00 - We would then assist the family with filing for

22:03 - for benefits, whether it be from the Department of Defense

22:06 - or from the Veterans Administration, at times taking them to the

22:12 - the offices to file for those benefits.

22:17 - A casualty Assistance

22:18 - officer is assigned to the

22:21 - next of kin

22:24 - in in in my situation, it was my daughter in law,

22:28 - and the officer that was assigned to her

22:32 - made it very clear to Brian and I that

22:35 - he was there to support her and her alone.

22:39 - We did not have a casualty assistance officer assigned to us,

22:44 - and I believe that that's something that the Army has changed.

22:49 - I know from other Gold Star moms that I have spoken with that

22:52 - they, as parents, had their own casualty assistance officers to help them

22:58 - through the process and to answer any questions they might have.

23:02 - My experience

23:03 - here, lasted from the summer of 68

23:07 - through the late spring of 71.

23:12 - I would suggest, and in my over 30 years of service,

23:15 - that it was, the most, difficult thing I've ever done

23:20 - and the most trying, and emotional, that,

23:24 - and, and has left a lasting memory,

23:28 - to me, to this, to this day.

23:31 - And so say, you know, the picture is a family

23:35 - in my mind's eye.

23:48 - Well, I was eight years old in Catholic school.

23:51 - Grade school.

23:52 - I was struggling in math, and my, teacher

23:55 - was bringing test results to every student in the class.

23:59 - And I was really worried about what my test results were going to be.

24:04 - And the day my brother was, the day we were notified

24:06 - that my brother died, was that day of this great test.

24:10 - I ended up getting 100% on that test, and I was so happy.

24:15 - I couldn't wait to get home

24:16 - to tell my mother, my father, that I did so well on the tests.

24:20 - Two hours later, my sister and I were on the school bus.

24:22 - We were driving down the street.

24:24 - On the bus we see all aunts and uncles cars at the house.

24:29 - I'm like, great, we're having a party.

24:31 - I passed my test.

24:32 - It was like I was so happy.

24:34 - And my brother Robert met us at the driveway when the bus dropped us off,

24:41 - and he told us that my brother was killed in war,

24:46 - and my sister immediately said, you're lying.

24:51 - And I said, he's not lying.

24:54 - And we walk in the house and everybody's in the living room.

24:58 - Parents are on the couch, my brother's fiance

25:01 - Gail's on the couch, and of course they're crying.

25:04 - And it was that's where it all started.

25:07 - And funeral.

25:10 - All that was within a week.

25:13 - And, it was one of the worst things I can remember.

25:16 - You know, my mother going into the funeral home, laying on top of the casket,

25:21 - looking at my brother, laying with glass above him in the casket,

25:26 - in his uniform, and

25:29 - it was really, really surreal.

25:36 - When I was in Vietnam

25:38 - and a battle, there was a marine

25:41 - that was killed as part of our company.

25:43 - His name was Jimmy Cannington.

25:47 - What you need to know is when a marine

25:49 - or any soldier is killed in Vietnam or wounded,

25:53 - they are carried out on a poncho, usually and placed on a medevac.

25:59 - After that time, you really often don't know what happened to them at all

26:04 - because remember there were no communications during that time.

26:08 - Very limited mail, snail mail back years later,

26:13 - I was at a reunion of our company, Charlie Company, first Battalion,

26:18 - first Marines, and Jimmy's brother was there, Al Cannington.

26:24 - And after a few beers, I decided

26:27 - I wanted to ask him what happened that day

26:31 - in January 1967,

26:34 - that he heard that knock on the door to him

26:37 - and his mother or family,

26:40 - and he took the opportunity to explain that to me.

26:44 - The Marines came up the walkway.

26:46 - His mother turned and saw them and immediately knew what was happening.

26:51 - She collapsed to the floor in the doorway.

26:56 - It was snowing outside.

26:57 - It was January, so al ran out the door

27:01 - and was of course slipping and sliding

27:05 - and trying to find neighbors or anybody he could.

27:09 - The Marines came and got him

27:11 - and brought him back into the house with his mother.

27:14 - And that's how they learned about the death

27:17 - of his brother and her son, Jimmy.

27:21 - January 15th, 1967.

27:28 - He was actually in-country

27:30 - with two months of action

27:35 - killed.

27:35 - November 22nd, 1968.

27:38 - We got the word the family a few days after the action.

27:42 - That he was killed in action.

27:46 - We got the word that he was killed in action that Saturday.

27:50 - From the young fellow that, we do believe that he came down

27:54 - from the Fort Indiantown Gap region,

27:57 - where the army base was there.

28:00 - This poor fella came in,

28:02 - very early on a Saturday morning, I'd say around 7:00.

28:06 - Little after 7:00.

28:08 - I was getting ready to do my, bowling league

28:11 - with the oh, boys club that I belong to.

28:14 - And my father was going to take me on up to the bowling lanes

28:17 - and in about an hour, hour and a half,

28:20 - there was a knock on the door.

28:23 - I actually, opened up the door

28:26 - and my father yelled from down the steps,

28:29 - he was up in the bathroom shaving.

28:32 - He was saying, who the hell at the door?

28:34 - I yelled back upstairs, a pop see guy from the army

28:38 - back in the kitchen, you heard the cast iron skillet dropped to the floor.

28:44 - Mom was making, breakfast for dad and myself

28:47 - because dad had to work that day, so Saturday was a very busy day for him,

28:52 - and that was the day that it changed the whole complexity of the family

28:59 - life had

28:59 - changed dramatically after we lost Benjamin.

29:02 - Starting from the very first night we lost, we learned that he died.

29:07 - A crew member lying in bed next to my husband,

29:11 - and he was weeping with tears, and I was weeping in tears.

29:15 - There was no hugs or.

29:19 - Words that we could say to each other

29:23 - that could comfort us.

29:24 - We just knew that there was an empty spot within our heart and in our soul,

29:30 - and that changed our life forever.

29:33 - Daily living became so much different.

29:37 - We would go to the grocery store,

29:39 - easy task as much as going grocery shopping, and we couldn't even

29:44 - shop for a day

29:47 - because our mind was too consumed

29:49 - with the grief that we were feeling.

29:53 - Our family members.

29:55 - In the beginning, everyone was there for us.

29:59 - They loved us.

29:59 - Our neighbors were there.

30:01 - Our community poured out

30:04 - with all the help and all the love and support for us.

30:08 - And then as the days wore on,

30:11 - they all seemed to go away.

30:14 - Some friends that we had prior to Benjamin's death

30:17 - no longer were our friends.

30:20 - That friendship was not important.

30:23 - Life changed.

30:25 - Our priorities changed.

30:29 - Who we now share our time with veterans.

30:32 - We try to help them as much as we can.

30:37 - And I call that the fuel

30:38 - that helps our family or my soul

30:43 - to move on and to live day to day

30:46 - just by helping other people.

30:51 - They needed to know where to send their remains.

30:55 - Michael's remains the body, what was left of his body,

30:59 - where to bring it, and what funeral parlor.

31:02 - So my father and mother chose the Fitzpatrick Funeral Home.

31:06 - So when the remains were coming in from Dover,

31:11 - my father was to be meeting Michael.

31:14 - The remains of Michael down at the Fitzpatrick Funeral Home.

31:18 - My oldest brother, Charlie,

31:21 - who just did a 13 month

31:23 - tour Combat Marine in Vietnam, told our father

31:27 - that he was going to go down with them to Broad Street when they got there,

31:32 - the undertaker and whoever the military attache was told,

31:38 - my father and brother, the remains

31:43 - should be on viewable on the viewable.

31:47 - Don't open the casket.

31:50 - My father was very adamant

31:53 - he wanted to see Michael.

31:58 - My brother Charlie,

31:59 - who saw the nonsense over there for 13 months of combat,

32:03 - told told her father that no,

32:08 - you can't open that box.

32:13 - You remember

32:13 - Michael the way he was before he left,

32:16 - and that was about it.

32:18 - Charlie?

32:21 - Charlie finally convinced pop that

32:24 - it was no good saying Michael the way was.

32:29 - A lot of people enter the service for various reasons.

32:33 - They do it out of patriotism.

32:35 - They may have been drafted.

32:37 - It may have been a family legacy.

32:39 - My father, my uncle, my mother, my aunt, someone.

32:43 - And they want to follow in that footstep.

32:46 - And when that person is lost

32:48 - to tragedy in that, in that person's family,

32:52 - they can't immediately grasp

32:57 - what happened.

32:57 - And there's two funerals.

32:59 - There's the notification that one gets

33:03 - that they're that their loved one has been lost.

33:05 - And then

33:08 - maybe months later,

33:10 - the body comes home.

33:13 - And then there's another funeral.

33:16 - It's a very, very painful experience.

33:21 - We have a history of dignified transfers in this country,

33:25 - because we don't want to leave any person on the battlefield,

33:29 - and that's where a dignified transfer starts.

33:33 - It's all about dignity, honor and respect.

33:37 - And nobody does that more than the military.

33:40 - A dignified transfer is not so much a ceremony

33:44 - as it is this dignified movement

33:47 - of the remains of the fallen soldier.

33:49 - To be sure that it is brought back to their family.

33:55 - But we don't leave people on the battlefield.

33:57 - We retrieve our own soldiers and sailors

34:01 - and marines and airmen on the battlefield, and we take them home.

34:05 - So most of this happens through Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

34:09 - I've had the great honor of visiting that facility.

34:12 - And touring what they do.

34:14 - It is a remarkable and respectful environment.

34:18 - They not only take care of the remains of the fallen,

34:20 - but they also provide housing for the families.

34:24 - Way back in the Civil War, there were dignified transfers,

34:29 - but the one that people remember most is the dignified transfer

34:33 - of the person who is right now at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier

34:38 - in Arlington National Cemetery.

34:41 - That person came from the battlefields of France.

34:44 - We don't know who he or she is or was,

34:50 - but that person was transferred

34:52 - from the battlefield to a ship, the USS Olympia

34:57 - and the USS Olympia

34:59 - transported that person in a dignified transfer

35:03 - across the ocean and back to the Washington Navy Yard

35:08 - in the entire

35:10 - transit of that ship across the Atlantic.

35:13 - And in those days, it probably took about 12 days.

35:16 - There was a marine honor guard that stood watch

35:19 - next to the casket of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

35:25 - And that's.

35:34 - So the dignified transfer

35:36 - is everything from getting the remains of the lost one

35:40 - from the combat zone back to a common area,

35:45 - aircraft flight back to the states, which is generally Dover Air Force Base.

35:49 - Then the transfer with a covered flag over the coffin from the aircraft

35:55 - into the memorial site on Dover Air Force Base, some mortuary services,

36:00 - and at that point their expert team, which is actually an Air Force team,

36:05 - takes over and ensures that everything in terms of identification,

36:10 - a uniform perfectly fitting uniform,

36:13 - all medals and ribbons are on the uniform, cleaned and ready to go

36:18 - so that when they deliver, that remains in a casket to the family member.

36:22 - It is done with the honor and dignity that it deserves.

36:26 - And then they also treat the family member to be sure that they

36:29 - are ready for this transfer.

36:35 - And the dignified transfer goes back,

36:39 - to the person, goes back to a home

36:43 - somewhere to lie in peace

36:46 - somewhere where the family will choose.

36:48 - There are options.

36:50 - Arlington National is one of them.

36:52 - A lot of people choose that.

36:53 - But people have also chosen

36:56 - places like the, cemetery at West Point

36:59 - or even a local cemetery where there is a family plot.

37:02 - It all varies according to the wishes of family.

37:09 - The home.

37:20 - The honor Guard is a service that we provide

37:24 - for service members that have died when requested by family members,

37:29 - funeral homes, American Legion's or VFW post.

37:32 - We provide that service for family members that are being buried in cemeteries.

37:36 - Other than the national cemetery, national cemeteries such as Arlington

37:41 - or Washington Crossing National Cemetery, or Beverly National,

37:45 - they provide the Honor Guard, which is a rifle squad,

37:49 - priest, chaplain or rabbi,

37:53 - and we do the services for the family members.

37:57 - It gives them comfort.

37:58 - We present them with the flag, and we also present them with three shells

38:03 - from the valley that we fire in honor of their loved ones.

38:07 - And we put them in a little pouch.

38:09 - And the note in the pouch says, the rifle volley fired in.

38:13 - On behalf of your loved one. Today,

38:15 - these three shells represent,

38:18 - duty, honor, and country.

38:25 - Fort Hood.

38:28 - Where is it?

38:29 - Where?

38:32 - Where's

38:33 - Watch Riders was started May 1st, 2008.

38:36 - Founding member was Wayne Lotz, who was an Army veteran

38:40 - or his watch started doing funerals in 2009.

38:46 - The concept of war's watch was going to be,

38:49 - we want to do welcome homes.

38:51 - We were going to get away from doing the funerals

38:53 - because they've done it so much with Patriot Guard

38:58 - that they wanted to do something for the kids coming home.

39:03 - While in

39:03 - turn, we needed to do something in our area

39:07 - because we didn't have Patriot Guard like we used to.

39:11 - So in 2009, we started getting into doing funerals and escorts.

39:16 - A young man who was from Philadelphia area

39:21 - who came home on a welcome home.

39:23 - We did his escort and two weeks later

39:27 - back over in Afghanistan and was killed.

39:30 - The one thing when the families

39:32 - contact you to do an escort, it's not one phone call.

39:36 - You're talking to the family a couple times, you're getting to know them.

39:39 - You're getting to know the whole family.

39:41 - You know what they're doing and what he did.

39:44 - What the father, what the mother did for her career.

39:48 - And you get more personal with it.

39:50 - So the day of the funeral, when you're doing the escort, it's like,

39:54 - you know, you feel that you've known these people for 20 and 30 years,

40:00 - and it's hard.

40:01 - It is really hard.

40:03 - But that's what we have to do.

40:13 - What I want people

40:14 - to know about Gold Star families is

40:18 - they say we gave the ultimate sacrifice.

40:22 - They thank us.

40:23 - Some people don't even know what a Gold Star family is.

40:27 - So I think it's important that everyone knows

40:30 - what is the greatest sacrifice.

40:32 - But I didn't sacrifice anything.

40:34 - My brother sacrificed his life.

40:36 - If it was up to me, he'd still be home

40:40 - for the family members.

40:41 - However, there was almost no reconciliation,

40:44 - especially at the very onset.

40:47 - It is destabilizing to families depending on how many members

40:50 - of the family there are.

40:52 - Imagine if you're the twin brother or sister of somebody that was lost.

40:55 - That is a whole different sense of loss.

40:58 - But it's not just the parents, it's also the siblings.

41:01 - It cascades down to family members, especially those family members

41:05 - that may have served in a previous war that really understand

41:08 - what it's like to lose a family member.

41:12 - The long term impact

41:13 - on my brother's death on my family was indescribable.

41:18 - Mom and dad never spoke of it.

41:20 - Among even their closest friends and family.

41:23 - Dad never spoke of it

41:27 - as a father who was in World War Two and a 23 month tour in Europe.

41:32 - Whatever he did in Europe during World War two,

41:35 - he never spoke of that.

41:40 - So can you imagine?

41:42 - He had six boys at home?

41:44 - Well, minus one now

41:48 - then, you want to bring it up?

41:49 - Never discussed it. Mom.

41:53 - She took it to her grave that she never was.

41:56 - Right after that.

41:59 - You mentioned Michael's name

42:02 - and just passing the tears would start flowing.

42:06 - Brian was my middle child, the monkey in the middle.

42:10 - He had an older sister and a younger sister,

42:13 - and his loss has been felt,

42:17 - certainly by the entire family in many different ways.

42:22 - He was married when he left for Iraq.

42:25 - They really hadn't spent much time as a married couple, and I know his death

42:31 - was just devastating to Cheryl.

42:36 - Her life was impacted.

42:38 - Her day to day life was impacted greatly for us kids that siblings.

42:44 - There was definitely no support because the parents didn't speak out.

42:48 - So you didn't speak out.

42:50 - You kept it within

42:53 - Charlie especially, who saw the combat,

42:58 - kept quiet.

42:59 - I bet you till the day we reinterred Michael down on I like it.

43:04 - Then you could see the weight of the problems lifted off his shoulders,

43:09 - because he must have felt a lot of responsibility,

43:12 - because him and Michael were always very close, very competitive.

43:17 - They were tight, you know, his brothers should be.

43:21 - It was a very,

43:22 - very tense thing for Charlie to deal with,

43:27 - obviously, as the closer to his death was much harder.

43:31 - But it still affected us throughout our life for instance, myself

43:36 - being that eight year old little girl when I found out about his death

43:41 - and how I was having a great day and it turned out

43:43 - to be the worst day of my life, I've always,

43:47 - when things are going really well, worry about what's going to happen.

43:51 - That's fair, because it always seems that if things are going well,

43:55 - the shoe is going to drop.

43:56 - Something bad's going to happen.

43:58 - And I've always felt that way my and my entire life

44:02 - since that happened, since Tommy passed,

44:05 - my brother Peter, who became a marine,

44:09 - a marine reservist right after graduating 69

44:14 - at all high school.

44:16 - Peter, I look back now, I think

44:19 - what affected him more because Michael bailed him out a lot of times.

44:24 - Mike always looked after him in the neighborhood.

44:27 - Peter would get himself in a little bit of trouble.

44:29 - Mike would bail them out.

44:31 - Mike handled Peter pretty well, like he kept him under control.

44:35 - Pete went off the rails.

44:37 - I do believe, with unfortunately,

44:41 - some of his, knack for drinking heavily

44:44 - and possibly wherever else he was taken

44:48 - to maybe forget about what happened.

44:51 - And I think Pete took that to his grave.

44:54 - I look back now.

44:56 - Maybe I was too, too hard on Pete.

44:59 - Never understand that.

45:00 - He took it.

45:01 - Maybe harder than any other brother.

45:05 - And then my my two little brothers,

45:09 - they never really knew Mike that well.

45:11 - Unfortunate, because they were.

45:13 - They were small guys, you know, they were eight and seven.

45:16 - They were little guys that they didn't know what the hell was happened.

45:21 - They just saw mom crying all the time.

45:23 - And it was just it was just devastating.

45:29 - My day to day life really didn't change.

45:33 - I still went to work.

45:34 - I still had my friends.

45:37 - The loss was was huge.

45:40 - I remember

45:42 - I was out on a hike with some other single people,

45:45 - and I met a new person who asked me about my family.

45:49 - Do you have a family?

45:51 - And I told this woman that I had lost my son

45:56 - and she started to cry

45:59 - and it bothered me so much

46:03 - that the next time I found myself in that situation, I denied having a son.

46:09 - I didn't want to make them feel bad,

46:12 - and I went home and I felt like a creep.

46:16 - And I never, ever did that again.

46:19 - I'm very proud of my boy and I will never, ever

46:25 - try to hide the fact that that he was with me

46:28 - for 28 years. He.

46:33 - After the knock on

46:34 - the door, life was never the same for our family.

46:37 - Joe died on December 22nd, 2012,

46:41 - a few days before Christmas.

46:47 - When we haven't celebrated Christmas

46:50 - since Joe died.

46:55 - And it was.

46:56 - It was such a big moment for my family, for my mom.

47:01 - She always loved it. My grandmother had a Santa collection.

47:03 - Like, Christmas was always just my mom's favorite holiday.

47:07 - But she said the next year she said, I don't feel like putting a tree up.

47:13 - I'm never going to put a tree up again.

47:14 - And we never did.

47:17 - That whole

47:18 - situation is really difficult to comprehend,

47:21 - and without the support of other Goldstar family members, in terms of consolation

47:27 - and training, treatment, reconciliation,

47:31 - you could imagine the downward spiral that some families can go through.

47:35 - So it is really an interesting perspective gold Star families

47:39 - provide in this time of loss to other families.

47:44 - Family members incur

47:46 - so many things after their loved one dies and we could talk a day.

47:51 - We could talk a year, we could talk.

47:52 - Even ten years later, PTSD can run rampant in their family again.

47:58 - I spoke of prolonged grief disorder, newly diagnosed in the DSM four.

48:03 - Recognized by the psychiatric community.

48:06 - You have addictions, addictions to pills.

48:10 - You know, someone might have had a one little injury

48:13 - and they just use that to mask their other symptoms.

48:18 - A lot of people use it to self-medicate.

48:22 - Alcohol is a huge thing that people use to mask

48:26 - and suicide with or without, you know, the purposefulness of it.

48:31 - It could be just by overdosing, taking drugs to an extreme where you have no out

48:38 - and it's either death or you stop.

48:40 - And most people aren't going to stop unless they

48:42 - have some type of intervention.

48:48 - They need the support around them as well,

48:50 - because even though we see a name

48:53 - or a picture of somebody, it's not ours.

48:57 - It's not our flesh and blood.

48:58 - We didn't lose that member of our family.

49:02 - They need the help, the support, the recognition,

49:05 - the respect of what their son or daughter did

49:10 - for us to still live the way we do

49:14 - and they become the forgotten ones,

49:17 - the ones that maybe didn't

49:20 - get everything they needed to get

49:23 - out of their lives.

49:25 - Losing a son or daughter is unbelievably painful.

49:32 - It's disconnecting shatters families.

49:35 - If we can't give them help,

49:38 - support, respect,

49:41 - it makes their journey twice as hard.

49:44 - And then not only could their son or daughter be forgotten,

49:49 - but now the whole family could be splintered

49:52 - and forgotten because they didn't get the help and support they need.

49:56 - Gold star families need a lot of support.

49:59 - A few years ago, I was sitting in the chapel

50:03 - of four chaplains in the Navy Yard

50:06 - and we received a call.

50:09 - Someone was in the middle of the Walt Whitman Bridge

50:13 - and they wanted to jump.

50:16 - Another person who was driving by saw that person

50:19 - standing on the top of the Walt Whitman Bridge in the middle, and they stopped.

50:25 - And right there.

50:26 - And you can see it when you go over the bridge.

50:28 - There is a suicide hotline.

50:31 - The person in the car called that hotline.

50:36 - That hotline notified us,

50:38 - and we dispatched a team

50:41 - to go up to see what was it about

50:46 - with this person who wanted to jump,

50:48 - because we were notified that this person was a veteran and veteran.

50:52 - Suicide is a huge, huge issue that we deal with today all the time.

50:57 - At the Chapel of Four Chaplains.

50:59 - So we would dispatch this team.

51:01 - They went up there to speak to this individual,

51:04 - and as it turned out, it was not a veteran,

51:06 - but it was the father of a veteran

51:10 - who had recently been killed in Iraq.

51:12 - So this man who was a Gold Star father, that's how he was dealing with his grief.

51:18 - He wanted to end it all himself.

51:21 - We needed to help him.

51:22 - And the first thing we need to do is to eliminate the chaos.

51:26 - The chaos is him jumping.

51:30 - That's what we're taught to do.

51:31 - Eliminate the chaos. So we talked him down.

51:35 - Now this ended up being a success story,

51:38 - and I wish that they all turned out like this.

51:40 - But the point that I want to make is that this is a family,

51:45 - a Gold Star family member

51:48 - who wanted to end it all himself.

51:50 - And this story here has stayed

51:53 - with me a long, long time

51:56 - because of the fact

51:58 - that we need to reach out to Gold Star families

52:03 - to help them deal with their grief,

52:05 - and they all deal with their grief differently.

52:08 - So the least we can do is to get to know who they are

52:13 - and show them that there is support for them.

52:18 - I chose to become a

52:19 - member of the American Gold Star Mother organization.

52:23 - The mission of an American Gold Star Mother is to honor our children

52:28 - through service to our veterans, our military, and our communities.

52:33 - I take this mission very personally,

52:36 - and I try very hard to honor my son through volunteerism

52:41 - and community involvement.

52:44 - I volunteer at my local VA medical center.

52:50 - It's very important to me

52:52 - and through this journey as a Gold Star mother,

52:57 - I have grown in many, many ways.

53:01 - I think I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly,

53:04 - and I think I'm much better for it.

53:08 - Group therapy for gold stars is so important.

53:11 - I mean, for people to come together over such a horrible tragedy in their lives,

53:17 - whether it's the parents of someone that was killed in action,

53:21 - siblings, there's Gold Star wives, children.

53:26 - It's a really important thing when you experience a loss such as that,

53:31 - for to be with other people that have similar backgrounds, situations,

53:37 - and to be there in a non-judgmental atmosphere

53:40 - where you feel that someone is not judging you,

53:45 - that you are in a safe place, that maybe you'll

53:50 - someone will hear your story in the group and they might not want to talk up

53:54 - because they're still uncomfortable,

53:56 - but they might grab you to the side later and say, hey, listen.

53:59 - So sometimes it might not be what is gained

54:02 - immediately at the group therapy, but or the it's the relationships

54:06 - that are also made from the group.

54:07 - There are groups and this could be for a child

54:11 - that was killed in combat or after combat

54:16 - or after the war, and they're home and they, you know, go through PTSD

54:20 - and they have become addicted to drugs or alcohol and they end up overdosing

54:26 - or they can't take it anymore and they commit suicide.

54:30 - There's groups

54:31 - that the gold stars can get together and discuss

54:35 - all of these things and not feel like someone is going to make them feel bad,

54:40 - or that their story is equal

54:41 - to someone else's, or someone is better than them, or worse than them.

54:45 - They're all suffering the same, just differently.

54:57 - So we started

54:58 - the Michael Strange Foundation because for me,

55:02 - I went to a couple therapist and they're great.

55:06 - But the best therapy I ever had was talking to a Gold Star

55:09 - father named Grant Smith from Brandeis in Pennsylvania.

55:13 - Getting together with other Gold

55:15 - Star families is so important

55:18 - to the healing process.

55:21 - After my son was killed, I spent a time going

55:25 - to a therapist, but they hadn't been through it.

55:29 - They don't know what it's about, so it really wasn't helping.

55:34 - So I stopped doing that.

55:36 - It was about four months, maybe five months after Tristan was killed.

55:42 - That I was losing my mind.

55:47 - I thought I was going crazy.

55:48 - I couldn't think my memory was shot.

55:52 - And I was talking to another gold star

55:55 - mom on the phone, and she asked, how long's it been?

56:01 - And I said, four months.

56:03 - And she goes, oh, she said, you just started.

56:07 - Which was such a shock to me because I had no idea

56:11 - how long of a process this was to to get through something like this.

56:16 - I was expecting to be done in a month or two,

56:19 - and four months is just the beginning.

56:22 - That was very helpful statement for me.

56:27 - So it's the talking to other parents

56:29 - that are farther down the road.

56:33 - It's just so invaluable to us.

56:35 - I call Grant up one day and asked him if I could meet him for a coffee.

56:38 - I didn't know Grant, but I had his number.

56:41 - I knew he was a gold star in the area.

56:43 - We met, we talked, we cried, we laughed.

56:48 - We got angry about the war and the things that happened in the war.

56:52 - We hung out for about a good hour, hour and a half.

56:55 - I came home to my wife.

56:56 - I said, I feel better.

56:57 - This guy knows you don't have to explain yourself.

57:00 - And I said this.

57:01 - We should bring more Gold Star families in and meet them.

57:05 - See how to how do they do it?

57:07 - How are they surviving?

57:08 - And that was the beginning of the Michael Strange Foundation.

57:11 - Now we had a first fundraiser at Saint Dominic's Northeast Philly.

57:15 - Joey Coughlin came the comedian band hooligans.

57:19 - Nikki Luke donated roast beef.

57:22 - We had a little fundraiser and we did our first weekend

57:25 - retreat and Malvern Retreat House in Pennsylvania.

57:29 - And it was great. And we did different.

57:31 - We bring in paid therapists,

57:34 - and then we had

57:34 - another one in Wildwood, new Jersey for three nights or four days.

57:38 - And we pay for the hotel, the plane tickets, everything.

57:41 - And we have good people that care about Gold Star families.

57:44 - Pick these people up.

57:46 - Started years ago back with Dave,

57:50 - again with Charlie Strange

57:53 - coming to me and telling me he needed transportation.

57:56 - He was running a retreat for parents of Gold Star

58:01 - and parents who just recently lost their children.

58:05 - And,

58:06 - we were able to round up some Derby vehicles,

58:10 - some vans from Philadelphia and New Jersey and pick these parents up

58:15 - at the Philadelphia International Airport and take them down to Wildwood.

58:23 - There's a

58:23 - thread that links all of our fallen.

58:26 - All have a very similar character and similar stories.

58:29 - It's just so helpful to know that you're not alone,

58:33 - and that you're walking the path with a lot of other people.

58:41 - Physical

58:42 - monuments and memorials are extremely important to the families

58:46 - of our fallen servicemen and women.

58:50 - The psychology of religious ritual

58:54 - is one of sight and sound.

58:58 - Physical memorials give family members an opportunity

59:03 - to see, touch, remember

59:08 - and reflect and process the grief.

59:13 - Remember the good times.

59:16 - Remember the tragedy that happened.

59:19 - But sight and sound is extremely important

59:25 - in processing the memory

59:29 - of a fallen loved one.

59:33 - And the

59:35 - we do the Beirut remembrance every year.

59:38 - And this year was the 40th year since the bombing.

59:41 - The Beirut barracks

59:43 - family members still arrive, and we get letters from them thanking us

59:47 - for still holding this ceremony 40 years later.

59:51 - That's why it's important to the family members.

59:54 - It's important to us because we don't want people to forget

59:57 - the things that have happened.

59:59 - 531 A lot of them have died.

01:00 - 05.468 Like I said, in Beirut, they were peacekeepers and

01:00 - 11.441 the barracks was bombed in October of 1983,

01:00 - 15.278 and there were 241

01:00 - 19.148 service members killed, 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers.

01:00 - 22.485 And it's important that we keep

01:00 - 25.488 their memory alive.

01:00 - 36.766 When you see a road named

01:00 - 41.437 after a Gold Star family or a person who was killed in action,

01:00 - 44.607 when you see a monument,

01:00 - 47.610 when you see a library or a post office

01:00 - 50.780 or a school named after that person,

01:00 - 53.983 that imparts immediate,

01:00 - 57.153 some kind of immediate

01:00 - 59.689 peace to the family because they are dealing

01:00 - 03.092 with the issue of grief and grief is shared.

01:01 - 06.929 And when you share grief, it helps with that process.

01:01 - 10.800 Any time people recognize

01:01 - 15.071 somebody losing their life

01:01 - 18.341 or a good contribution

01:01 - 22.278 of being in to mankind or whatever you want to call it,

01:01 - 27.750 I think it's important for the families that, you know, we were recognized

01:01 - 31.721 as the people in the neighborhood that we lost our brother.

01:01 - 33.122 My parents lost a son.

01:01 - 37.226 I really feel that there's nothing more, nothing better,

01:01 - 41.731 nothing bigger that we can do than to have these ceremonies,

01:01 - 46.936 to have these monuments, have these celebrations, the celebrations of life

01:01 - 50.006 so that we don't forget the children

01:01 - 53.009 of these Gold Star families.

01:01 - 56.279 I think memorials

01:01 - 59.282 are important for historical reasons.

01:01 - 04.854 My grandchildren and their children need to see not only the names of the people

01:02 - 08.057 that passed, but the sacrifice that was made by these people.

01:02 - 11.994 Now. Now everybody's looking for something.

01:02 - 15.431 They want everything, but they don't realize the sacrifices

01:02 - 18.434 that were made for them to get the things that they want.

01:02 - 23.473 Down the road and years after that,

01:02 - 27.410 you know, there's a wall, there's a memorial wall there with his name on it.

01:02 - 31.714 But the other fallen guys from Father George,

01:02 - 33.182 kids in the

01:02 - 36.552 neighborhood that were older than my brother, that were in

01:02 - 40.123 the armed forces, Green Berets, a couple of them.

01:02 - 44.160 And they put a memorial in Philadelphia,

01:02 - 47.163 the Vietnam Memorial in Philadelphia.

01:02 - 49.766 I remember going there

01:02 - 53.002 and neighborhood older guys that, you

01:02 - 56.139 know, would come and say, we really missed your brother.

01:02 - 57.907 He was a great guy.

01:02 - 00.910 He was a hero.

01:03 - 03.813 That helped ease the burden a little bit.

01:03 - 08.284 And it made you feel that, you know, his life wasn't

01:03 - 11.921 lost for nothing.

01:03 - 13.990 Why do we build

01:03 - 16.993 monuments, memorials for fallen servicemen and women?

01:03 - 18.861 Legacy.

01:03 - 19.729 It's legacy.

01:03 - 22.732 We said it 100 times over the years.

01:03 - 27.003 If we can give them nothing else, a legacy

01:03 - 30.373 is that stone last forever?

01:03 - 33.176 Whether it's a granite paddle,

01:03 - 35.678 a granite stone on the ground, a name on a bridge

01:03 - 39.615 that is a legacy that will last.

01:03 - 44.453 It's a name that someone will look at someday and say, who is this person?

01:03 - 48.424 There's plenty of opportunity now on the web

01:03 - 51.194 to be able to find somebody's name.

01:03 - 54.730 So when you look at a memorial or a monument,

01:03 - 58.801 you should look at it in a total

01:03 - 02.505 not only what it's made of,

01:04 - 06.142 but what is it made for?

01:04 - 09.278 It's made for you to see and look at and engage with.

01:04 - 12.315 But it's really for you to engage with

01:04 - 15.751 whoever is on that memorial.

01:04 - 25.895 I was fortunate enough to work

01:04 - 28.865 with Woody Williams earlier in my career.

01:04 - 31.901 Woody served in the United States Marine Corps

01:04 - 35.404 in the Pacific Theater, specifically on Iowa, Jima

01:04 - 38.341 operated a flamethrower,

01:04 - 40.910 and was also an explosives expert,

01:04 - 45.548 and was awarded the Medal of Honor because of his actions there when he would

01:04 - 50.519 Jima, which he really wouldn't talk about until his late 90s or mid 90s,

01:04 - 54.423 as he would go up with the flamethrower, there'd be a two man rifle team,

01:04 - 58.461 and he lost six Marines that day who were covering him.

01:04 - 01.797 So even though he does this amazing

01:05 - 05.835 thing of taking out numerous Japanese pillboxes with his flamethrower,

01:05 - 10.072 he carried that cost of those lost six Marines.

01:05 - 13.843 Hence why I suspect he really never wanted to talk about it.

01:05 - 18.080 But upon returning, he was very much involved

01:05 - 20.716 with this whole idea of Gold Star families.

01:05 - 24.921 And this in part comes about because you hear the stories

01:05 - 29.525 from the Vietnam War about how families were notified.

01:05 - 30.359 There was often

01:05 - 34.797 a yellow cab driver with a telegram well before he joined the Marine Corps,

01:05 - 37.700 Woody served as one of those yellow

01:05 - 41.871 cab drivers and delivered many of those telegrams.

01:05 - 46.676 And he described, it is really one of the most horrible things he had to do.

01:05 - 52.114 So when he was awarded the medal and he came out of the service,

01:05 - 55.952 he made a commitment to help people.

01:05 - 58.387 And one of those ways is

01:05 - 01.390 to be involved with Gold Star families,

01:06 - 04.393 he would recount in his own community in West Virginia,

01:06 - 08.497 you know, seeing families where that blue star changed to a gold star

01:06 - 13.402 indicating a family member had past been killed in combat.

01:06 - 16.772 And that hit home with him.

01:06 - 19.809 And that, I suspect, is one of the reasons

01:06 - 25.715 why he started those Gold Star memorials as a way to memorialize

01:06 - 30.286 the families of those who served, not just the service member themselves.

01:06 - 34.256 When Woody Williams founded these Gold Star memorials,

01:06 - 37.626 he founded the first one in his own home state of West Virginia.

01:06 - 38.227 Really?

01:06 - 42.064 The others begin to come about, at least from what I understand,

01:06 - 45.434 and my own personal experiences, is Woody's personality.

01:06 - 50.039 Woody, as a medal of honor recipient, was an active participant

01:06 - 53.609 in the Medal of Honor Foundation and thought it extremely important

01:06 - 57.780 to go out and talk to the community and encourage citizenship

01:06 - 02.818 and patriotism and service and the second Gold Star

01:07 - 07.523 Memorial actually is put in place at Freedom's Foundation at Valley Forge.

01:07 - 09.992 And the reason for it was pretty simple.

01:07 - 13.229 Woody comes out to speak to a graduate class of teachers.

01:07 - 18.434 He talks about his efforts to start these Gold Star family memorials.

01:07 - 22.505 The first thought of the staff, then at Freedom's Foundation

01:07 - 25.841 and some of the board members

01:07 - 28.844 is that we need to get one here.

01:07 - 32.214 And initially, his intent is one in every state.

01:07 - 35.384 He thought that was a big goal.

01:07 - 37.553 While it begins to get so much momentum

01:07 - 40.289 that many states have

01:07 - 44.927 multiple Gold Star Memorial, some still like a Delaware, have one.

01:07 - 47.930 But Pennsylvania is now heading towards three

01:07 - 51.033 so that we're now up to 165 memorials

01:07 - 54.503 with another 60 or so in the works.

01:07 - 58.174 And I think it just speaks to to Woody's personality

01:07 - 02.945 and his sincerity that he didn't do this for himself.

01:08 - 06.482 He did this really for the nation.

01:08 - 10.619 We're building

01:08 - 14.924 a Gold Star family monument in North Wally for a couple of reasons.

01:08 - 18.661 One, the inspiration

01:08 - 21.664 that Hershel Woody Williams gave me

01:08 - 25.901 was that we needed one here on the island of the Wildwoods

01:08 - 31.073 to recognize the 30 or 40 Cape May County residents

01:08 - 34.076 that died in various wars,

01:08 - 37.179 and also all the visitors.

01:08 - 39.381 But this is a national monument.

01:08 - 43.285 You can't isolate and say no, we just want it for our people

01:08 - 45.221 or our relatives or our friends.

01:08 - 48.791 You want it so that every visitor,

01:08 - 51.794 every body that comes in contact with it.

01:08 - 54.063 Realizes

01:08 - 58.167 it affects the entire country because these young men and women die

01:08 - 01.337 to protect all of us.

01:09 - 08.344 At the Cape May County Veterans Cemetery,

01:09 - 12.081 there are memorials to all service members

01:09 - 15.451 to allow families

01:09 - 18.454 who are visiting a chance to reflect

01:09 - 24.727 upon the service to our country and their loved ones, service

01:09 - 28.264 to our country, and to take pause

01:09 - 31.534 for the reason for our freedom.

01:09 - 40.709 In lower Bucks County and Bucks County,

01:09 - 43.846 there are countless

01:09 - 48.484 memorials to fallen soldiers, Gold Star families, one at Washington's

01:09 - 53.556 Crossing National Cemetery, the Gold Star family Memorial from Woody

01:09 - 57.092 Williams was installed about four years ago.

01:09 - 01.163 And it gives a great glimpse because it's right at the precipice of

01:10 - 02.431 the top of the hill.

01:10 - 04.466 As you're coming in the cemetery,

01:10 - 07.670 so you really can get a glimpse of the shadows of it,

01:10 - 12.107 and the expression that it gives you as you look out over the cemetery.

01:10 - 16.512 It's actually positioned in a really powerful place,

01:10 - 19.748 to give it significance

01:10 - 22.952 among the 17,000 buried there.

01:10 - 27.122 That get ready for several years,

01:10 - 30.359 Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum has been the host site

01:10 - 33.362 for the new Jersey run for the fallen,

01:10 - 36.198 which honors Gold Star families with a run

01:10 - 39.235 that starts in northern new Jersey and ends here in Cape May County.

01:10 - 44.139 This helps us also honor the 42 men that were killed

01:10 - 47.977 that made the ultimate sacrifice during training here at Naval Air Station

01:10 - 50.980 Wildwood during World War Two.

01:11 - 04.026 Our run is four day run

01:11 - 08.464 and our run team military runners, most active duty.

01:11 - 12.034 We do have some retired and we also have we actually have

01:11 - 15.537 two runners that are core runners that are actually Gold Star siblings.

01:11 - 18.874 We have one, female. She lost her brother

01:11 - 22.044 and we also have a male who was a police officer up the road.

01:11 - 24.747 And they are both four day core runners.

01:11 - 28.217 So every mile during the first day we start at Sunset Beach.

01:11 - 31.053 We end at Ocean City, new Jersey.

01:11 - 33.155 So we run a mile.

01:11 - 34.523 Then they they do what they do.

01:11 - 37.760 They salute that, that hero, and they move on to the next mile

01:11 - 41.964 after about 5 or 6 miles, our relay team will switch out,

01:11 - 45.834 and then a fresh team of legs will get out and they'll run the next morning,

01:11 - 47.870 just running until the end of the day.

01:11 - 48.537 They present.

01:11 - 50.873 If there's family or friends there,

01:11 - 53.842 there's always something that we give to the families that are waiting there

01:11 - 57.012 for our runners for most of our run, though,

01:11 - 00.182 and I'll say this, that it sounds like they're only running a few miles.

01:12 - 04.486 Most of our runners over the course of the four days will run 90 plus miles.

01:12 - 06.955 When they get out there, they let us know that

01:12 - 09.992 how important it is to them as military people

01:12 - 13.962 to honor and support and not forget and to be there for those families,

01:12 - 18.567 because what happened when you run up on a on a hero marker,

01:12 - 21.637 the family is there or the friends are there.

01:12 - 23.572 They are tired from running that mile.

01:12 - 25.507 They run mile after mile after mile.

01:12 - 28.777 They've read the bio, they're talking about that runner.

01:12 - 33.816 And then everyone hugs and it is the most emotional thing.

01:12 - 37.052 They are going up and they're hugging that mother, that father, that brother,

01:12 - 41.690 their sister or friend and they're sweaty and they are exhausted

01:12 - 46.228 and they are sometimes sad and happy and stories are shared.

01:12 - 48.297 But that's what happens at them.

01:12 - 53.135 Hero at the hero marker, each person individually will go up

01:12 - 56.739 and take a minute and see that family and talk about them for just a second.

01:12 - 01.543 Then we gather up our people and then they move on to the next year.

01:13 - 03.545 A marker

01:13 - 06.548 I would like to recognize

01:13 - 09.985 in new Jersey there's a school, the Sand Man School.

01:13 - 14.323 Every year, the new Jersey run for the fallen runs

01:13 - 18.260 past the school, and that's where they honor my son.

01:13 - 22.331 And the whole school comes out to stand with me.

01:13 - 26.068 And what I think is so remarkable is

01:13 - 30.439 the children are being taught that freedom is not free.

01:13 - 32.441 And they really get it.

01:13 - 34.910 They really understand

01:13 - 37.913 the value of our military

01:13 - 42.451 and the need to recognize and honor our fallen

01:13 - 48.023 Mrs. Robinson, one of the sixth grade teachers

01:13 - 51.527 every year has her class

01:13 - 54.329 write letters to the font family.

01:13 - 57.733 And these letters are incredible.

01:13 - 01.203 They show such intelligence.

01:14 - 04.640 The kids are so wise and

01:14 - 07.142 they share a lot

01:14 - 10.479 of their personal feelings with me in these letters.

01:14 - 13.015 And and I'm so grateful to Mrs.

01:14 - 16.585 Robinson and to the same man school for what they do.

01:14 - 20.823 And there needs to be more of that throughout the country.

01:14 - 23.992 The kids need to be taught about what

01:14 - 26.995 it means to fight for your country,

01:14 - 30.666 and to honor those who have given

01:14 - 33.669 the ultimate sacrifice.

01:14 - 49.384 The need to reach out to those people

01:14 - 54.323 who have suffered, grieved, and lost.

01:14 - 57.326 Somebody who served this country, who answered

01:14 - 01.363 the call of this country, who felt it was the right thing to do.

01:15 - 03.799 There's no more

01:15 - 07.870 prouder individuals than I've met with.

01:15 - 11.373 With over 35 years of a veteran activism

01:15 - 15.811 and the parents of these children who are going,

01:15 - 20.282 so reaching out to Gold Star families is the very minimum

01:15 - 24.319 a veteran can do to support console

01:15 - 28.390 and embrace

01:15 - 31.593 the idea that your family,

01:15 - 36.932 when you look at a Gold Star family or you see them however

01:15 - 39.968 they may be dressed in white or somewhere

01:15 - 43.272 where there a ceremony it would be,

01:15 - 48.076 they would welcome an opportunity to, you to come up and shake our hand.

01:15 - 50.846 We take everything for granted.

01:15 - 53.849 This family just lost a loved one.

01:15 - 57.219 They don't take it for granted every day when their son and daughter

01:15 - 00.222 is in the military, it's just you can't

01:16 - 03.058 because you never, never know what's going to happen.

01:16 - 06.962 We don't want to lose those memories.

01:16 - 08.163 They don't want to lose that.

01:16 - 13.168 But they also want to ensure that society is aware of the contributions

01:16 - 16.572 of their son or daughter, the fact that there's a significant loss,

01:16 - 19.942 but the fact that the family members and society

01:16 - 22.945 has never forgotten that.

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