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Wife of fallen soldier recalls the day everything changed

Dec-21-2005 » Filed Under: Homefront

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MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

Norma Melo will have a special memorial Mass celebrated today for her late husband Julian, as she has each month since losing him in Iraq a year ago.

But otherwise, Fort Lewis will not formally observe the anniversary of a day that shook the post like no other in these past four years of war.

It was a year ago today that a suicide bomber detonated himself inside a busy lunchtime chow hall at Forward Operating Base Marez, in Mosul, Iraq. Twenty-two people died, including six Fort Lewis soldiers, and more than 70 were wounded.

Even before the identities of those killed and wounded were made public, those at Fort Lewis braced for the worst. About half of the 4,000 Stryker troops then in northern Iraq lived at FOB Marez....

Others killed in the bombing were Capt. William W. Jacobsen Jr., 31, of Charlotte, N.C.; Staff Sgt. Darren D. VanKomen, 33, of Bluefield, W. Va.; Staff Sgt. Robert S. Johnson, 23, of Seaside, Calif.; Spc. Jonathan Castro, 21, of Corona, Calif.; and Pfc. Lionel Ayro, 22, of Jeanerette, La.

Melo began bereavement counseling and joined with other members of the local Gold Star Wives chapter – women who lose their husbands in military service.

“Death is one of the things that happens in war,” she said. “Of all the families, Julian and I were probably the oldest, both in our late 40s,” she said. “We had a different aspect. We lived a good long life; we had talked about what it meant that he was going.

“He said, ‘Just know if something happens, it’s because I had no control,’” Melo recalled. “We had those difficult talks, so maybe it was a little easier.”

She returned to work. She and Julian’s son, Jorshua, a 20-year-old college student, collected money to send to Iraq to buy musical instruments for school children – Julian loved music, and the children in Iraq.

“I’m on a road that women and families before me have been on,” she said. “… We loved him. It’s just a big void that’s very hard to fill, so slowly we’re filling it with the good memories.”...


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