APG honors Maryland's Gold Star Families

Edith and Bob Canapp talk to their APG hosts and other guests at a breakfast held in honor of Maryland Gold Star Families at the Ordnance Museum May 14. The Gold Star Families were later introduced during opening ceremonies of the installation's Arme...

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. - Eighty-five year old Edith Canapp remembers the day as if it were yesterday.

"I still see those two Soldiers walking up my walk to the front door. I knew what it was right away. We weren't anticipating it, because my younger son had been in the Air Force two years earlier and he came home," she said.

The Soldiers had come to the Canapp home in Baltimore to inform the family that their son, Cpl. Gary Edward Canapp, had been killed in Vietnam on Aug. 5, 1968.

"I wasn't looking for trouble. It came to me," Edith Canapp added.

"The young man who was with him was from New Mexico and in the midst of his second tour. When he came home from the war, he carried this message in his head - 'You tell my mother and father that I love them.'

"He told him, 'I sure will.'"

Canapp's eyes misted briefly before she gathered her resolve.

"He was the type of kid who would volunteer," she said of her son. "And that's what he was doing when he was killed, volunteering to be a scout for his unit."

Edith and Bob Canapp from Abingdon, Md., were honored guests at Aberdeen Proving Ground's Armed Forces Day activities May 14. The Canapp's and eleven other Gold Star Family members joined installation leadership for breakfast at the Ordnance Museum prior to opening ceremonies.

They were welcomed by Installation Commander Maj. Gen. Nick Justice, Garrison Commander Col. Orlando Ortiz, and Command Sgts. Maj. Hector Marin and Rodney Rhoades. They were also introduced to all in attendance at the Armed Forces Day opening ceremony.

The Gold Star Families are an outgrowth of the Gold Star Mothers, a group formed by Congress in 1928, according to Carol Roddy, president of the Maryland chapter of Gold Star Mothers.

"Gold Star Mothers is the name Congress gave it, but we have more or less made it into a Gold Star Family. Our (commemorative) license plates say Gold Star Family. We try to include more of the family in what we do, because the family is hurting just as much as I am," she explained.

The Roddy's lost their son, Petty Officer 2 David Roddy, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician, in Afghanistan in 2006 as he attempted to defuse an improvised explosive device.

Patriotism swells quickly in the hearts and minds of the Gold Star Families.

Cindy and Gary Lohman lost their son, Sgt. Ryan Baumann, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, when he was killed in action Aug. 1, 2008, in Afghanistan.

"They were forward deployed, to the border region of Pakistan," Cindy explained. "It was an IED. They had credible evidence that the Taliban was attacking a middle school in Nasar and they were actually on the way to another mission when it was aborted and they turned around. They were heading down the side of a mountain and Ryan saw the IED.

"It was a trap," Lohman continued. "They were going through a narrow area in an up-armored Humvee, coming down the side of the mountain. There was no way to avoid it. All of his troops survived..."

Her voice trailed away as she talked about the injuries to the other Soldiers.

"Each person goes through the grieving process on their own timetable," Lohman said, talking about how she became a Gold Star Mother.

"I've been part of this for a little over a year," she said.

"It's nice having a group that you can go to that knows kind of what you've been through. Each of our experiences are a little different, but it's nice knowing that you can go to this group and you don't have to explain the history and how you feel, and you don't have to feel like you're face saving because you're going through a group process," she said.

"I'm a nurse by profession and have done a lot with families who have lost children. Military deaths are little different. One of the things different with the military is the extended family. Lohman enjoys being part of a larger military family.

"I don't have to explain how I feel with the military," she said.

"I had to go a conference in Baltimore shortly after we buried my son. I was sitting in this huge room with mostly civilians and they had a presentation of colors and played the Star Spangled Banner. I broke down in tears. Nobody understood except for the guys sitting next to me from Fort Meade. They were military. I had purposely positioned myself near them and, it was just comforting. They understood. There was nothing else that had to be said," she explained.

Coming to APG and being greeted by Maj. Gen. Justice was a bittersweet reunion for the Lohmans.

"It's a small world," Lohman said. Justice's son, Jessie, was a student at the University of Maryland in Augsburg, Germany. Cindy Lohman was the school nurse and her husband Gary was teaching physics. (The school has since closed.)

"The amusing thing was that Jessie Justice spent so much time at our house, actually babysitting Ryan a lot. He was one that our son really related to.

"Jessie and Ryan got along great. They were like glue," Lohman added. Sadly, they didn't stay in touch.

"After Jessie joined the Air Force, they lost track of one another. It wasn't until after Ryan was killed that we went to Facebook and found him again."

Edith Canapp said associating with fellow Gold Star Mothers allows her an opportunity to freely express herself.

"It helps you because you're allowed to talk about something that during Vietnam they didn't want you to talk about - and you NEED to talk about it," Canapp said, emphatically. "You need to talk about it outside the family frame, with individuals who have had similar experiences."

"Why didn't we do this year's ago'" she asked of the meeting at Armed Forces Day.

"This (attending Armed Forces Day) is really helpful," Roddy said. "It makes us feel we're not forgotten, that we're not just a number. During Vietnam, those poor mothers...

"As years go on, you want to make sure your child is still part of it," she added.

Roddy addressed group goals and initiatives.

"We're a support group, but we're also doing a lot for the services. We have an overwhelming desire to help the kids (service men and women) that are out there. We make blankets to give to Walter Reed and we volunteer at Walter Reed. Some of the girls are volunteering at Perry Point (Veterans Administration Medical Center).

"I work for the USO; my husband and I volunteer there and wherever else we can help or where we feel comfortable," she said.

Roddy is also campaigning for new banner being promoted across the country.

"There's a new flag called 'The Honor and Remember Flag.' Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware have all adopted this new flag. It's a beautiful flag. The gentleman presenting it is taking it to every state. His son was killed in Afghanistan in 2006," Roddy explained.

"This flag will fly above the POW/MIA flag. What we're trying to do is get it through legislation here in Maryland."

APG honors Maryland's Gold Star Families

TOP STORIES

Social Sharing