This article was very inspriring. Legacies of war dead endure
FALCON, Colo. — At dawn a mother gazes not at the sun rising over the High Plains, nor the purplish snows of Pikes Peak. She sits in her study staring at a laptop, because the place on earth she feels closest to her fallen soldier is cyberspace.
Dane was her first-born, the boy who always
wanted to follow his dad into the Army. Even after she tried to talk
him out of it. Even after — especially after — his nation went to war.
He left for Iraq in July 2007. Less than two months later, he was killed by a roadside bomb. He was 19.
This morning his mother, Carla Sizer, logs on to
Legacy.com's "In Remembrance" section. Spc. Dane Balcon, like thousands
of other servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan,
has his own memorial page. There are several obituaries, a musical
tribute, 176 photos and a "guest book" with almost 1,200 messages
posted by relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates, comrades and
total strangers.
Carla visits the site first thing every morning,
coffee in hand, and last thing at night, in her pajamas. She visits
during the day (the site is bookmarked on her iPhone). She leaves a
message or reads those posted by others. She calls up a photo of Dane
and touches it on the screen with her fingers. At times like these, she
says, "I know he's smiling down. It keeps me going in the right
direction."
The Internet is changing how Americans remember
the war dead. This Memorial Day, Carla and tens of thousands of others
will turn to such memorial websites to mourn, honor and recall departed
members of the military services.
In 2005, Legacy.com, the world's largest
commercial provider of online memorials, inaugurated the In Remembrance
site, promising to create and maintain a page for every servicemember
who died in Iraq or Afghanistan, free of charge. Last month, In
Remembrance logged 21,669 unique visitors to its pages; over the past
four years more than 325,000 messages have been submitted to its guest
books.
Such websites — including "Honor the Fallen" at
Military Times.com, Fallenherosmemorial .com and a growing number of
personal sites — complement and sometimes supplant the tangible rituals
of death, says John Metzler, superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery.
Memorial services and cemeteries won't
disappear. But "how you remember someone, how you tell the story of a
life, that's changing fast," he says, and needn't be limited by what
can be carved on a gravestone or inked on newsprint.
Carla Sizer understands. When she posts a message, she says, "I feel like I'm talking to Dane."
Dec. 14, 2007
It has been three months today that you have
been laid to rest. The pain still persists and has not eased one bit.
... I have cried and cried until my eyes have dried. But because of our
loving God and the Grace he provides us, I am able to get out of bed
and care for your brothers. I am able, by his Grace, to lift my head
high and be PROUD of my son, Dane, for he IS a HERO in the minds and
hearts of so many. Love, Mom
The Web makes every day Memorial Day, for several reasons:
• Accessibility. People anywhere can
visit a site at no cost, even if they can't attend a funeral or visit a
grave. Dane Balcon, for instance, is buried in a military cemetery in Denver,
more than an hour from here. "That's a long drive when you're crying,"
Carla says. Karianne Golemme, sister of Army National Guard Sgt.
Michael Kelley, who died in Iraq in 2005, says that although she
regularly visits his grave in Massachusetts, "I can't leave a note on his grave. I can leave it online."
• Immediacy. People can visit whenever
they want. Julie Scott, mother of Dane's best high school friend,
checks his site several times a day and gets automatic e-mail alerts
when a new message is posted. She says posting is therapeutic: "It
always brings a smile. Sometimes it brings a tear. But afterward, you
feel better."
• Individuality. Traditionally, visitors
beheld a memorial. Now they can interact with it or help create it by
posting video, audio, photos and text, notes Kathleen Gilbert, an Indiana
University professor who has studied online tributes. Several of Dane's
friends have posted photos of tattoos they got in his honor.
• Community. Dane's site has "brought
people together. A community has been created," says Julie Scott, who
struck up a correspondence with the relative of another slain soldier
who left a message on the site. Carla has been contacted by people she
hadn't seen in years, including an old friend whose son was born the
same day as Dane.
• Intimacy. Instead of waiting in line at
a funeral home to mumble a few words or scribble something in a guest
book, online mourners are able to visit or post at their own time and
pace. Gilbert says some reticent mourners are more comfortable
expressing themselves in writing, even if their posts can be read by
anyone online. Linda
Macone, aunt of Marine Capt. Jennifer Harris, whose helicopter was shot
down in Iraq in 2007, says she's surprised when people comment on her
posts: "I've always felt that they were just between me and Jen."
Legacy.com reviews every message posted to its
guest books and rejects those its editors deem inappropriate —
including those that are overtly political, commercial or profane. Some
other sites do not review posts beforehand.
Always sought to be a soldier
The online memorial has been a revelation to
Carla Sizer, a 42-year-old retired Air Force captain who until last
year taught management at the Air Force Academy. She lives in a
subdivision just east of Colorado Springs with her husband and their sons, ages 7 and 3.
She's ordered two bound collections of the
messages on Dane's site, one for each boy: "I want them to know that,
hey, we had a hero in the family!"
May 25, 2008
Dane — tomorrow is Memorial Day ... it is
bittersweet. Bittersweet in that we miss you and love you ... but so
proud that you died in an honorable manner. It is my mission to ensure
that you and others like you are never forgotten. ... Your legacy will
live on forever ... I promise ... they won't forget! — Ma
Ever since he was 3, according to the family story, Dane Balcon wanted to be a soldier.
His father, John Balcon, served in the Persian Gulf War and later joined the 82nd Airborne division. After his parents divorced, the boy spent vacations with his father at Fort Bragg, N.C.,
where he got to sit in an Apache helicopter and a Humvee turret. When
he returned to his mother he'd sing, "I want to be an airborne Ranger!"
By high school, the Army was Dane's passion. He
commanded the Junior ROTC drill team — leading practices,
choreographing routines, making sure the uniforms were pressed. He was
indifferent to academics and did just well enough to stay in ROTC.
For a teen, he was unusually gung-ho. He made
his bed ("and it was tight," recalls his mother); starched and ironed
his uniforms (and his mother's); and practiced about-face maneuvers
around the house.
He carried Sun Tzu's The Art of War
in his pocket and wrote slogans under the brim of his baseball cap,
including, "Death before Dishonor." Even his pastimes — paintball,
target practice, drums — tied in to the military.
"When I go, I hope that they remember me and
what I did," he wrote in an essay for an ROTC class that later was
posted by his instructor on his memorial site. "My greatest fear, the
thing I fear most, is being forgotten."
Determined to serve
His stepfather, Larry Sizer — a former Air Force
medic — used that fear to try to dissuade him from joining the wartime
Army. If those killed are really heroes, he asked Dane, "Can you name
one?" Except for Pat Tillman, the football star-turned-soldier who was killed in Afghanistan, Dane couldn't; he didn't know anyone who'd ever died in war.
But the boy was adamant. "I think they're
heroes, and I'm not afraid to die for my country." He told his mother,
"I was born to do this."
Seven months after leaving for basic training, he was in Iraq.
It did not fit his image of a spit-and-polish
Army. Instead, he found weary veterans of two or three tours, worried
about spouses and kids and mortgages back home. The last time she
talked to Dane on the phone, Carla recalls, "his voice sounded edgy,
shaky. He was scared."
On Sept. 5, 2007, he was driving the second
Humvee in a convoy near Balad. A bomb exploded, throwing Dane from the
vehicle. A helicopter flew him back to the base, where he died on the
operating table.
Nov. 24, 2008
I can't touch you or see you, but I feel you
and know that you are always with me. I'm still very angry ... but I'm
not sure at who. What I am sure of is that you were and always will be
the apple of my eye. I put everything I had into you. ... You used to
tell me all the time, "Ma — one day you'll read about me"! I never
thought that it would be this way. ... Sweetie — I'll see you on the
high ground ... HOOAH! — Ma
A week after Dane's death, Carla — sleepless,
gaunt, distracted — was shocked when someone told her Dane had a
website on Legacy.com. "What's that?" she asked.
Now when Carla goes to the site, the posts
trigger a range of intense feelings. She's comforted by those that come
on his birthday (April 27) or the anniversary of his death, days on
which she's asked that Dane be featured on the In Remembrance home page.
Sometimes posts addressed to Dane offer her a glimpse of otherwise hidden emotions. Like this, from her husband, Larry:
Call me greedy or selfish, but oh how I wish you were here,
Because now I sit on the porch and talk to an empty chair
Hoping you can hear each and every word that I speak,
Being strong for the family means that I cry when they sleep.
And this, from Dane's cousin, Devon Thomas, 16, of York, Pa.:
yo cuz i was really missin you today 4 some
reason. it really is gettin to me i am cryin as im writin dis to you i
have so much to say and so little words to explain it man yo i love you
to death and i really wish you was still here your my life idol real
talk
Carla, the former professor, winces at the syntax, punctuation and spelling. "But he's not talking to me," she concedes.
Jan. 1, 2009
My sweetness ... I have finally come to one
realization: Your loss to me is beyond human understanding. No matter
how many times I replay life in my mind, I still come back to the same
place and that is that the Lord knows the plans he has for us. His
plans are not our plans. But the Lord does give us hope and a future.
... I'll see you on the high ground. HOOAH!
Love, Ma
Carla's day ends as it begins, at her laptop. Today there has been a new post, from a young woman who went to junior high in Ohio with Dane and who just now has learned of his death.
Carla says that after 20 months of reading such
messages, she knows she and Larry were wrong about whether soldiers are
remembered. Each post is a vote against death.
That's why she keeps coming back to the site,
despite how much it hurts. "People really do remember," she says.
"They're keeping him alive."
