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Honoring our fallen heroes
It’s an image we’ve become all too familiar with: the faces of our brave men and women killed while fighting overseas.
They scroll across our TV screens and often no longer even resonate with us. We don’t learn their stories, their families or what drove them to serve our country in the first place.
Then one of those faces is one we recognize.
Stephan Lee Mace, of Purcellville, was our son, grandson, brother, neighbor and friend.
He was our teammate and classmate -- someone we loved.
That’s when the war hits home.
Our first reaction is often why.
We may question the war and want to know how much longer we have to worry about our friends over there fighting it.
More so than our questioning, though, is the pride that our community could raise a man willing to put his life on the line every day to protect our right to wake up each morning with the freedom and safety to do as we please.
There’s also an overwhelming sense of grief for not only Stephan but also his family and we who lost him.
So we do what human compassion wires us to do.
We open our arms and collectively embrace Stephan’s family: his mother Vanessa, his father Larry, his brothers Matthew, Bradley and Christopher, and everyone else who called him kin.
But amid our mourning Stephan, let us not forget that this same scene is playing out in neighborhoods all over the United States.
Every American soldier killed in Afghanistan and Iraq is someone’s son, brother, spouse or friend.
And the best way we can honor our friend Stephan is to pay attention when those faces come across our TV screens and are printed in our newspapers.
Learn their stories, backgrounds and why they chose a life of service to country.
After all, these were Stephan’s friends and comrades.
And just like Stephan, they’re our fallen heroes.
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