For Venessa Bone of Huntsville, events like the Celebration of Life luncheon for Gold Star families are comforting, giving the family members of fallen heroes a way to share with each other.
Bone’s son, Staff Sgt. Tyrone Campbell, a Butler High graduate, was one of 18 fallen service members on a Fallen Hero Role Call during the luncheon Monday at the Roundhouse.
Campbell was working in finance at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 10 years after he left the University of North Alabama to enlist in the Army. Campbell, who had cardiomyopathy, died in July 2006 after running PT that morning and going home to take a shower and change.
“It’s the camaraderie,” said Bone, who was helping with the event preparations. There are different circumstances behind the deaths of the service members that were honored Monday, “but still we all have that common bond; we lost a child (in) active service. We all know the loss, the pain.”
The second annual luncheon was organized by the American Gold Star Mothers, Department of Alabama, North Alabama chapter and followed the annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Huntsville Madison County Veterans Memorial.
“We’re all in this together, we’re all in this journey together,” Redstone Senior Commander Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, the guest speaker, said. “This is a wonderful celebration of life.”
He noted that 1.1 million military personnel have died while serving the country, adding that the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier walk 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the monument, never leaving their post except when there’s lightning.
“We will never forget, and we will never step back from our responsibilities as a nation, and you are all part of that. Thank you so much for your service.”
Doris Booker Harris, also from Huntsville, was at Monday’s luncheon for the first time and has attended the Gold Star Mother’s Dinner in the fall since the death of her son, Staff Sgt. Andre Booker, on Aug. 19, 2011, at age 30 while serving at White Sands, New Mexico.
Booker joined the military just weeks after he graduated from Johnson High School, and served 11 years in all, first in the Marines before joining the Army. “He was strong, he was loving, he was a leader,” she said. “He loved his family, and he loved his children. He tried to do what was right and he was a Christian.”
Attending a Gold Star event “strengthens me and encourages me, and I can encourage others, Harris said. “As the time goes, it helps me. It’s not easy but it’s better.
“Gathering with other mothers and families that have lost a loved one is very encouraging. We never let them go. We carry them with us every day. It’s only through Christ that we can do this,” Harris said. She learned of her son’s death as she prepared to go to a funeral home to make arrangements for her father-in-law’s funeral service.
“The journey’s not easy but we go through it.”
Displays honoring the area’s fallen service members were set up across the Roundhouse.
Marie Waxel, a WAAY evening news anchor who emceed the event, read the names of 18 fallen heroes whose family members attended – 1st Lt. David Albandoz, Air Force; Maj. Jeffrey Ausborn, Air Force; Pvt. 2nd Class Vincent Baker, Army; Pfc. Zachary Boland, Marines; Sgt. 1st Class Andre Booker, Army; Staff Sgt. Tyrone Campbell, Army, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Julian Evans, Army; Sgt. 1st Class James Ginas III, Army; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Edward Goodloe, Army; Pvt. Aaron Gorkle, Army; Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Alan Hall, Army; Sgt. 1st Class Mark Daniel Leshikar, Army; Cpl. Kyle Little, Army; Petty Officer 1st Class Katharine Lockwood, Navy; 1st Lt. Scott Love, Army; Sgt. Demetrion McCarthy, Army; Staff Sgt. Travis Nelson, Army and 2nd Lt. Jeremian Twilley, Army.
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