My Life As A Military Spouse

Memorial Websites

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.”

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 8:25 AM