The following was ‘the’ above the fold front page article in the Saturday Charlotte Observer
Grieving family views life in shades of Gray
Beloved son. Brave fighter. One of 2,787 dead.
The first thought I had was “Why Saturday and not Tomorrows?”!
This is the Lead article for today, Sunday, Charlotte Observer:
Pageants: ‘Miss Paula’ is N.C.’s Queen Maker
I don’t get the sunday observer and didn’t see the front page yet, but the above is the lead off online article, and I’ll bet a front page article if not ‘the’ above the fold.
COURTESY OF THE COCKERHAM FAMILY
“The armed forces … afford us the luxury to squabble, sit here and live everyday lives. My son gave his life so that everyone else could have that trivial existence.” Ben Cockerham, father of Gray Cockerham (above), who was killed in Iraq Oct. 21, 2005
This leads off the article:
Today, Gray Cockerham’s family will visit him at the only place they can, the address etched in their memory: Section 60, headstone 8290, Arlington National Cemetery.
Gray’s father makes this observation, a true Marine would believe, but you know that in his heart and mind that isn’t what really should be, as the above statement, below the photo, is his and the rest of the article attests to.
“War is inevitable, and there has to be someone with the guts to fight it,” said Ben, 46, a former Marine himself. The Cockerhams didn’t want to discuss their politics. Marines, he said, fight for their country, not a political party.
The last sentence, above, is a reality as most are a-political, be they Marines, Army, Navy, or Air Force.
Excerpts from an essay by Ben Cockerham
About Arlington National Cemetery
Guest book: Offer your condolences
Cpl. Benny Gray Cockerham III, known to everyone as Gray, was in constant motion from the time he was a baby, never able to sit still, always ready to throw himself into outdoor activity, the more challenging the better.
He snowboarded, wakeboarded, Jet Skied, hunted, fished, played paintball and ran and dove across the field as an all-region forward on the St. Stephens High School soccer team.
The change came from serving in the Hell on Earth of War:
But he returned from his first tour of duty a different man. Wounded by a mortar round in the battle of Fallujah in April 2004, and awarded a Purple Heart, he seemed older in appearance, outlook and demeanor.
He became closer to his family, more patient and easygoing. One day, Jill noticed Gray standing in the driveway, staring at the sky. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Looking at the clouds,” he replied. “You don’t see clouds in Iraq.”
The night before Gray left for his second tour of duty, in July 2005, he planned his own funeral. I want it done exactly like I said, he told his father.
“Tell everyone in the family I love them,” Gray said when he phoned Jill on Oct. 18, 2005, promising to call back the following Sunday.
Three days later, at about 9:30 p.m., Ben and Jill were coming home from a Hickory restaurant and noticed a white van in their driveway. “Who drives a white van?” they wondered.
Than the ‘Visit’:
The Marines stepped from the van. “We regret to inform you there was an explosion,” they said. Gray was missing. Recovery operations were under way.
Ben knew what the military language meant. Jill held out hope. If anyone could have made it, she thought, Gray would have.
On Monday night, the Marines phoned. Gray had been found in a canal next to the road.
Gray’s body was flown to Arlington, outside Washington, from Charlotte/Douglas airport. “The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Ben said, “is watch my child lifted on a forklift, in a crane, and put on an airplane.”
Visiting their son and others sons and daughters, ever growing numbers in these times:
Each time they make the trip, they notice that the rows of tombstones have grown.
Gray was killed that October day with three other men, two of whom — Chris Thompson, 25, of Millers Creek, outside Wilkesboro, and Kenneth Butler, 19, of Landis — were from N.C. towns about an hour apart.
Staff Sgt. Jason Ramseyer, 28, of Lenoir, who was killed by a roadside bomb in April, lies about 10 graves away. His birthday: Oct. 21.
Ben is both proud and remorseful about the way his son died. Jill feels differently but declines to elaborate.
In this country, we concern ourselves with who won the football game, Ben said. We drive down the road talking on our cell phones. We have televisions and cars and nice homes. We worry about the lyrics to rap songs.
“All this other stuff seems so trivial, and the reason it feels trivial is that the armed forces let it be trivial, afford us the luxury to squabble, sit here and live everyday lives,” Ben said. “My son gave his life so that everyone else could have that trivial existence.”
Earlier this month, Ben was in a restaurant where the TV was tuned to CNN. The announcer mentioned that three Marines had been killed in Iraq. “No one even stopped their conversations,” Ben said. “It’s a non-event for them. It’s like there was a train wreck in Siberia.”
The family has made a long planned move to a new home, another city:
At their new home, the Cockerhams no longer imagine seeing the white van in the driveway, as they had every day since last Oct. 21. They do not run into people in town who look at them like they don’t know what to say.
The article ends with this:
Adam, now 18 and a college freshman, has asked, “How much longer before our house gets back to normal?”
Jill has a reply. “I don’t think it ever will.”
We have a Nation who like to think of themselves as the Most Powerful and Above All Others that share this planet! We have a Nation that Argue about who is More Responsible as to the Security of same! We have a political party that prides{?} itself on being the leader of that concern of Security, of who’s leaders were asleep at the wheel on 9/11 and Katrina! We have a Nation with Huge Defense and Intelligence Budgets that very few Question where those monies Actually Go, we just buy the fact that the More Spent the Better our Security and Safety! While we have World Policies that just plain Piss People Off who are on the other end of those Policies, causing a Less Secure Existance of Security and Safety!
We also have a majority in this Nation, while spending those Huge Defense and Inteligence Budgets questions unasked political party makes no differance, pay little heed to the Budget of the VA even while invading other countries and creating New Generations of Combat Veterans in need of Care as well as their Family Members!
The following Should Not Be Happening:
‘Gold Star Families’ NOT Receiving Grief Counseling!!
Military spouses seek more grief counseling
America’s Gold Star Wives want widows and widowers to get help – free of charge.
October 11, 2006
For more than two years now, Suzanne Stack has been living with the reality that her husband won’t be coming home. That he was killed in Iraq. That their three young children – until very recently – have been unable to talk about their father without breaking down. And still, “I don’t really fully understand the whole grief process,” she said.
We as a Nation Create Wars, than we Ignore the results of same. Why{?}. you might ask; Because It Costs To Give The Care Needed, and in our Materialistic Society That Cost Is Just Too Much!
Tricare, which oversees health care coverage for military families, doesn’t cover extended grief counseling for military families unless they are diagnosed with a mental disorder, like depression.
We all should be asking these questions:
But some women with Gold Star Wives of America are asking why a grieving parent should have to claim that his or her child has a mental disorder to get them a professional to talk to when they’re understandably, even naturally, bereaved.
In this Election year, with Unnessesary War Waging, ask those Running for Political Jobs ‘We Hire Them For’ if they will join, not only the Gold Star Wives, but Everything that needs to be done for the Military and their Families, and Fight Hard for the issues that We Must Pay For!
The Gold Star Wives, a nonprofit organization for military widows, is beginning a campaign to get some sort of grief counseling added to the benefits covered under Tricare.
While the 10,000-member group hasn’t formally started lobbying legislators in Washington, it has begun to gather supporters for the cause.
Late last month, Rose Lee, the Gold Star Wives’ chairwoman for government relations, testified before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, saying, “Mental health is an issue affecting widows and children. I’m hearing from new widows more and more. Vet centers provide counseling, but it’s not always nearby. And Tricare doesn’t provide grief counseling.”
Part of the problem, though, is that in medical terms grief isn’t considered an illness.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which both military and civilian clinicians use to identify an illness, includes everything from Alzheimer’s and alcohol-induced sleep disorder to anxiety and social phobia. Grief is not listed.
And making a hard situation even harder, she said, some families aren’t getting their loved ones’ entire bodies back to bury. Stack was at least able to see her husband’s body.
That didn’t make seeing a coffin any easier for the three of their six children still living at home. The younger kids were 3, 5 and 7 years old at the time.
“It was a very tough age. They don’t really understand death. They don’t really understand war. When you combine the two, it’s a very difficult conversation to have.”
“I get therapy from getting up every day and getting my kids going and hearing their laughter. I’m trying … to give them the best I can give them, to raise them the way we had talked about, and to give them the love that both of us would have.”
Help the ‘Gold Star Widows’ , the ‘Gold Star Mothers’ and the ‘Gold Star Families’!
We created the situation that has made them members of these Exclusive Groups, none would choose to join otherwise!
