REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- Spc. Andrew Chris was already a hero when he deployed to Iraq.
With a three-month deployment to Afghanistan, the courage and fortitude to train as a Ranger, and a family who admired and supported his career choice, 25-year-old Andrew had more than proven that he was worthy to wear the Soldier's uniform.
He was a hero to his family, to his friends in his hometown of Huntsville and in Florence where he grew up and graduated from high school, to the state of Alabama, to the Soldiers he served with and to a nation that sent him to war.
But Chris' status as a hero took on a whole different meaning when he was killed in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 25, 2003, becoming the first from Madison County and one of the first from Alabama to die in the Global War on Terrorism. He is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery and his name is on the Veterans Memorial in downtown Huntsville.
Aside from his military honors, Chris' family wants people to know that he was a kind, protective, compassionate and courageous young man who held his family close to his heart.
"I want people to know how much he loved his family," his mother, Cheryl Chris, said. "I want people to know what a hero he was to all of us. He is still very much alive for all of us."
Chris' name is also part of the Wall of Honor designed and built at the new home of Army Community Service and its Survivor Outreach Services program at the Community Welcome Center, building 3443. He will be recognized along with the 45 other heroes whose photos and names are part of the Wall of Honor when it is unveiled Sunday in a 2 p.m. ceremony. Andrew will be represented at the event by his younger brother, Josh Chris, and his daughter Ella; his aunt, Kim Phillips; and his grandmother, Barbara Phillips, all who live in Huntsville.
"To me, these kinds of events are very comforting. You know that people care," Kim Phillips said, with tears in her eyes.
"Things like this show us we are not the only ones in this situation," Barbara Phillips said. "Some people want to be alone with their grief. It's really painful to go through something like this and some people find it difficult to talk about it. Others, like me, want to talk about it because it makes me feel better."
For Cheryl Chris, participating in Survivor Outreach Services events are part of the journey that she is meant to go through as the mother of a fallen Soldier. She now lives near Baton Rouge, La., and will probably not be able to attend the Wall of Honor unveiling because of the travel distance. But she is glad her son will be represented at the event by other family members.
"Things like this unveiling keep his memory alive. I don't want anyone to forget what he did," she said.
Still, today, some 10 years after her son's death, it can be hard to believe at times that he is really gone.
"I was more afraid for him when he went to Afghanistan than when he went to Iraq," Cheryl Chris said during a recent visit with family in Huntsville.
"The war was officially over when he went to Iraq. But it was also a time when IEDs (improvised explosive devices) had become really popular."
Chris had called his younger brother, Josh, on June 22, 2003, to tell him he was going to Iraq with Company B, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Three days later, Chris and another Ranger were killed when a vehicle packed with explosives and parked on the side of a Baghdad road exploded.
"I was at work and my husband was at home when a couple of Soldiers from Fort Polk (La.) came to the house," Cheryl Chris recalled of that time. "My husband (and Chris' stepfather) said he would tell me and told them to come back later. We found out on the 26th that Andrew had been killed."
The next day, Sgt. Carson Steck, a Ranger from Fort Benning, Ga., and a casualty assistance officer from Fort Polk returned to assist Cheryl Chris in making funeral arrangements. The funeral was in Huntsville on July 3. The Army was represented at the funeral by several Redstone Arsenal officers, and a Ranger chaplain and a busload of Rangers from Fort Benning.
Although Chris was a post-9/11 Soldier, it was not the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City that motivated him to enlist in the Army. He had already enlisted when those attacks occurred.
"He had moved to San Diego (Calif.) to live with his brother Derek, who was in the Navy and stationed there," Cheryl Chris said. "He enlisted in 2001 and was actually on his way to boot camp when 9/11 happened."
While in San Diego, Chris worked making steel skin body piercing jewelry. He made a lot of friends and discovered a love for World War II history. He spent time camping with a friend who owned land in Arizona where he could practice target shooting with guns.
"The reason he decided to become an Army Ranger was because of all that the Rangers did during World War II," Josh Chris recalled. "He really got into anything that was authentic to World War II. He read every book he could find on World War II and started being part of World War II re-enactments. He wanted to someday teach military history. That's what inspired him."
But Josh Chris saw something else in his brother that better explained his decision to join the Army and pursue a Ranger career.
"I think he just had a need. He was a rescuer. For him, this was more of a calling," Josh Chris explained. "He had a drive to become something more than he was. I remember he would fill his backpack with rocks during his lunch breaks and run up and down this hill behind where he worked."
In his decision to enlist, Chris joined a family military tradition that began with his grandfathers serving in World War II, his uncle serving as a special operations Soldier and his dad serving with an Army airborne division in Germany during the Vietnam era. Chris' dad died from non-military causes when Chris was 3, and Cheryl Chris raised her three sons alone while working and going to college to become a chemical engineer.
"Andrew thought about it for a long time before he even decided to join the Army," grandmother Barbara Phillips recalled. "He prepared for it for a long time."
Before completing his journey to Fort Benning, Chris made a stop in Baton Rouge to visit his mother, who had moved there with her second husband. While there, he and his mom visited the World War II museum in New Orleans.
But 9/11 hung a shadow over the visit. With commercial flights grounded, Chris had to take a bus to Huntsville, where he visited briefly with his grandmother and brother Josh before his aunt Kim Phillips drove him the rest of the way to Fort Benning.
There were a few visits home during Chris' two years of Army service. During one of those visits, Chris and his older brother Derek visited their father's grave at Maple Hill Cemetery. Chris put his Ranger tabs on his dad's grave and said "Dad, I did this for you."
Josh Chris said the family was amazed by the outpouring of support at Chris' funeral and for a long time after his death. Cheryl Chris received numerous notes, gifts and memorials from people all over the world. Their family hero is now among the war heroes memorialized on a quilt that hangs in the main hall at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The family has represented their beloved son and brother at several veterans memorial events, and Josh Chris has shared his brother's memories with his daughter, Ella, who was born three years after Chris?' death. The two have attended some of the Survivor Outreach Services family activities at Redstone.
Cheryl Chris has also been involved with Gold Star Mothers in Louisiana, the Survivor Outreach Services program at Fort Polk and the Blue Star Mothers of Louisiana. She has attended gatherings of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a national organization that hosts military survivor weekend events throughout the nation.
"TAPS is really great. It has been a turning point for me," she said.
"It helped me to be able to go along this journey. So many times, people will say 'They're gone. You need to move on.' But I can't do that. At TAPS, they tell you that 'No, you don't have to move on.' Our loved ones are going to be a part of our lives forever. This is a journey and we are taking the journey together. It's a survivor's journey and there is no closure."
Cheryl Chris has also been a TAPS mentor for other families experiencing the loss of a service member. But that became too difficult for her emotionally.
"I couldn't do it. It would tear me up. You relive it enough without reliving it through someone else's grief," she said.
Although the family is spread afar with Cheryl Chris living in Louisiana and her oldest son now working as a civil servant in Washington, D.C., Huntsville will always be home base because it is where the family is from; where Josh Chris works as a defense contractor and other members of the family, such as Kim Phillips, have ties to Redstone Arsenal; and, more importantly, where both Chris and his father are buried.
"If anything, for us, what has happened has brought us closer together," Josh Chris said.
And being part of a community that appreciates and acknowledges their loss means a lot to Chris' family.
"A lot of people have lived through something like this. There have been a lot of sacrifices made in this war," Kim Phillips said. "Time does not heal all wounds. Sometimes time makes them worse. You miss your loved one more and more.
"Andrew will always be our hero. He had so much potential. We don't want anybody to forget what a special person he was."
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