The week that Army Spc. Thomas K. Doerflinger was killed in Iraq at age 20, a friend in the neighborhood brought his parents a felt banner with a gold star. Tradition holds that a grieving mother hangs it in her window until the war is over. As it turned out, the war outlasted the banner.
Years passed; the red border faded. Repairmen who came to their door on leafy Collingwood Terrace would innocently inquire, then stammer their condolences. The Doerflingers didn’t feel right displaying a kind of grief that was never going to go away, so after a while they put the banner in the hutch.
Endings can be complicated for families of the fallen.
When President Obama announced the conclusion of combat operations in Iraq this month, Lee Ann Doerflinger didn’t feel any closer to that magical “closure” everyone talks about. In some ways, she felt worse.
Thank you again, Kendall, for keeping this on our radar. This is a beautifully written story, perfectly understated. By God’s grace our son, who was wounded several times in Iraq and Afghanistan, is stateside again. We are acutely aware of how fortunate we are, and remind ourselves daily that there are many families who have deep sorrow to contend with. We have been surprised to find how our son’s experience has affected us now that he is home. Little things will trigger emotions. I heard my normally stoic wife sobbing out of the blue in another room the other day and rushed in to see what was wrong. She was saying, “they tried to hurt him… I don’t want him to go back…” Some thought, some stray memory had apparently triggered the fear she had stowed away months ago and now that the danger has passed, the dam burst. Stories like this article are very emotional for me now in a way they weren’t before he came home. I’m not sure why. Maybe the realization hits you that someone has tried to kill someone dear to you, that they succeeded in hurting them, that the end of deployment is in many ways only the beginning of a long road to recovery. Don’t get me wrong, our days are also filled with joy! But, with so many who have made the ultimate sacrifice, the joy is bittersweet.