Honoring the Fallen
Group promotes national recognition of war casualties

Jackie Cunningham, left, watches while Bibbs Sherman hangs a banner depicting her son's life and military career. The banner will be on display at Serman's Of Gallup embroidery at 2000 W. Hwy. 66, then it will be joined with other banners of fallen Iraq war veterans in a quilt that will tour the country. (Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent)

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Last Friday was the three-year anniversary of the day seven U.S. soldiers died in a 15-hour firefight atop a snowy mountain in the remote eastern stretches of Afghanistan.

Among the dead that day was Senior Airman and Pararescueman Jason Cunningham, later awarded the Air Force Cross for repeatedly braving enemy fire to save the lives of 10 fellow soldiers before succumbing to his wounds.

Cunningham's parents, who live in Gallup, received news of their son's death the next morning. And for Jackie Cunningham, Jason's mother, "the pain is just as intense today as it was then."

But she's worried that most Americans endlessly bombarded with the latest body-count figures have grown too accustomed, detached and desensitized to their country's ongoing engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, with the help of an Air Force veteran and a few other families, she decided to do something about it.

Together, they formed the Honor the Fallen Foundation, spearheading the creation of a memorial quilt that's to depict the U.S. government employees lost in the war on terrorism and eventually tour the country.

For all the trauma of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Cunningham said, "it was so long ago that people have gone back to being complacent again."

It's easy enough to listen to all the news reports of the hundreds of U.S. soldiers who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, sit back, and blame President Bush. Cunningham said she was like that herself before her son joined the military.

"But the bottom line is, they're still over there, and they're sacrificing their lives for us," she said. "And I want Americans to be more appreciative of our military. If they weren't out there fighting for our freedom, where would we be?"

She's hoping the quilt will remind them.

The project was actually the idea of veteran Air Force Pararescueman David Cruz, whom Cunningham met at Jason's Air Force Cross award ceremony two-and-a-half years ago in Albuquerque.

Cruz, she said, was involved in a quilt project in memory of AIDS victims, and called her with the thought of honoring the fallen soldiers of the war on terrorism in a similar fashion. Cunningham liked the idea and started to spread the word. She's also contacted the Army Times while Cruz is hitting the airwaves.

Cunningham is hoping to have enough quilts to patch together and send on a tour of the United States by Memorial Day, and says some states have already agreed to display the quilt inside their capital buildings.

But the work won't end there, Cunningham says.

She expects the quilt to keep growing until every family that's lost a soldier to the war on terrorism since 9/11 has contributed.

As the quilt travels the country, she said, "we'll keep adding to it because more and more people will know about it and want to keep adding on to it."

She hopes the quilts will help families cope with their loss, as it's helped her.

On a black banner 6 feet by 3 feet, a photograph of her son, calm and confident, stares out from the center. Embroidered on the banner is a poem written by her son-in-law in Jason's honor. Other photos on the banner stretch from his childhood to his military service.

"Some of those pictures I hadn't seen since Jason died," she said. And although the pain is still there, deciding which pictures to use, which not to, where to place them, she said, has been a healing experience.

"It makes you realize that, even though he died, he left a major legacy," she said. "There are 10 men that got to go home because of what he did that day."

In that sense, she sees the project as a way not only to honor the fallen, but to turn them into individuals.

"Now," she said, after so many months and years of fighting and casualties, "it's just a name you see. This personalizes this person and puts a face with it. It reminds people that they were also someone's son."

But the quilt isn't the Foundation's only project. In the tradition of the yellow bracelets six-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong is promoting to support cancer research, the Foundation is selling blue Honor the Fallen bracelets whose proceeds help support the dependent and immediate families of fallen soldiers.

While the government offers financial assistance to the fallen soldier's dependent families, said Cunningham, "the immediate family doesn't mean anything to them."

When Jason was being honored in Washington, D.C., she said, it was her husband's company that stepped in to pay for the travel expenses, for example.

"David (Cruz) had seen what a struggle it was for us, and he really wanted to do something to help," she said. That's why some of the proceeds go toward easing the financial burdens of the immediate families.

To learn more about the Foundation or to purchase a bracelet, visit www.honorthefallen.org.

— To contact reporter Zsombor Peter, call 505-863-6811 ext. 217.