Posted on 05/28/2006 1:02:58 PM PDT by Graybeard58
HOLIDAY, Fla. -- Rita Richardson smiles at the memory: Her young son Dan, prowling the woods dressed in camouflage and green face paint or jumping off the shed like a paratrooper. But she wanted her little commando to know that war was more than a game.
So each Memorial Day, she would take him to Arlington National Cemetery, near their Virginia home, to walk with her through that "garden of stone," to appreciate the sacrifices honored there. This Memorial Day, she will be there in spirit as her soldier son trains for another overseas deployment.
Janice Pvirre will be at Arlington in person. She will join the other "Gold Star Mothers," those who have lost children in combat, to lay a wreath and to say a prayer at a white marker engraved with the emblem of this nation's highest military honor.
Her son, Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, died in a dusty courtyard outside Baghdad, fatally wounded in a furious firefight while showing "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity ... above and beyond the call of duty" -- a sacrifice that made him the only service member awarded the Medal of Honor in the Iraq war.
Among those Sgt. Smith's actions saved: Dan Richardson, who has recently married and himself been promoted to sergeant.
That knowledge is both a blessing and a burden, for one mother to know that any milestone she will celebrate with her son -- a birthday, a holiday, the birth of a child -- was made possible by another mother's loss.
"We have been drawn together for some reason, and we're both intrigued about that reason," Richardson says. "There is a destiny behind all of this. And it's not over. It's not played out yet. We don't know where it's going from here."
Janice Pvirre believes her son's fate was determined when he was 5.
One day, someone at school asked Paul what he wanted to do when he grew up. "I'm going to go in the Army," the green-eyed boy declared, looking up through long lashes. "And I'm gonna have babies and I'm gonna get married."
"I said, 'Well Paul. Let's rearrange that,"' his mother laughingly recalled recently by the pool at her daughter-in-law's home in Holiday, north of Tampa. "'Go in the military, get married and THEN have your babies.' And he laughed and said, 'Yeah."'
He did join the Army, in 1989, but at first he wasn't much of a soldier. Stationed in Germany, Smith drank too much and, on a couple of occasions, slept right through formation. The first Gulf War changed him, his mother says.
The man who once partied late into the night had become obsessed with training and discipline.
Growing up around Washington, D.C., Dan Richardson was surrounded by the military.
Jerry and Rita Richardson were both federal employees. Jerry Richardson had served four years as a Navy parachute rigger, and the couple always stressed service to country.
{Much more of this story by following the link.}
That one requires a "hanky alert".
I needed one too.
Ditto.
That map on that flash brought back some memories.
I spend a year at the BIAP complex at Camp Victory.
Allegra knows the area well. OhioWFan's son spent a bit of time there as well.
Thank you for the link. It was amazing to watch.
Your welcome JustAmy :) That Flash presents the situation he was in so much better than the citation on his award. It in a sense gives the viewer a kind of 'situational awareness' simple words can not convey.
You are right. Seeing the animation of the tanks and the movement and size of the enemy made it so much easier to understand what was going on.
God Bless and Protect the Warriors (our heroes) fighting to preserve our freedoms.
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