Gold Star families keep fallen service members' memories alive

HARLINGEN — The funeral for a San Benito soldier was one of the last hurdles in Regina Shipp’s own grieving process.

The Harlingen woman has been a rock of support to other parents of fallen soldiers ever since a roadside bomb killed her son, Darrell, on Jan. 25, 2007.

Shipp organized regular gatherings where families could comfort each other. She attended parades and other remembrances to keep the memories of the Rio Grande Valley’s war dead alive. And she put long hours into fundraising for a planned veterans memorial in Harlingen.

But try as she might, she never thought she could steel her emotions to make it through the funeral service for another soldier without succumbing to her own grief.

“I tried with another family that lost their son, but when I saw the casket, I had to turn around and walk out,” Shipp said. “I wasn’t ready for that.”

Then Pfc. Adriana Alvarez came home in February.

Days after Shipp and other parents from the Gold Star Families of the Rio Grande Valley watched in a cold rain as Alvarez’s casket was unloaded from the military jet, Shipp made it through her first funeral service to honor one of the Valley’s fallen.

It’s a duty she hopes helps others almost as much as it helps herself.

“It’s hard to talk to anyone else but the Gold Star mothers,” Shipp said last week as the first twinges of grief started to hit her ahead of Memorial Day. “It’s hard to explain how we feel.”

SLOW RECOVERY

For months, Shipp waited for a phone call she hoped would come.

Even after Darrell’s friends and family spoke glowingly of the 25-year-old at his memorial service — where a slideshow featured a picture of him embracing his father before he went to Iraq — Shipp was convinced her son was still alive.

She answered phone calls believing she would hear her son’s voice on the other end of the line.

“She kept hoping it was a mistake, which we all did,” said Jennifer Walker, Darrell’s oldest sister. “She just mainly didn’t want to accept that he was gone.”

It took six months and regular phone calls from another parent before she finally started to accept her loss.

Juanita Anguiano, a Brownsville woman whose son Edward became the first Valley soldier to be killed in the Iraq war in March 2003, regularly called to check in on Shipp and her family.

And Shipp developed a close relationship with Manuela Leija, a Raymondville woman whose 27-year-old son, Hector, was killed the day before Darrell died in Iraq.

Leija, whose son enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was 17 and spent three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the relationship reminded her that she wasn’t alone.

“When you lose a loved one, there are times that you get depressed,” she said. “Once you have someone to talk to, you find ways to keep on going.”

AN OUTLET

The comforting friendship that developed between the women led them to form the Valley’s chapter of the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization established after World War I to provide support to mothers who lost children in the war.

But rather than organize their chapter around mothers, Shipp wanted to provide an outlet that would help other family members to grieve. Shipp, who was named president of the Valley’s chapter, saw the pain in her husband’s eyes after they lost their son, and she knew how her daughters reacted to losing their brother.

Since its formation, the Gold Star Families of the Rio Grande Valley has provided support to families of more than 30 soldiers with Valley ties that have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

An Edinburg father says he saw the monthly meetings as a place to open up about his loss. A McAllen woman turned to the group for support after struggling with the loss of her son-in-law.

And Arturo Aguirre, a Raymondville father whose son, Anthony, was killed days before he was scheduled to leave Iraq in February 2007, wanted to talk about the Tuesday morning when he woke up at 6 a.m. with someone at his door.

“When I saw them standing in the door, I knew what it was already. It was two boys and a girl — three Marines,” Aguirre said. “They told me straight: ‘We’ve got bad news. He was killed yesterday.’”

Aguirre and about a dozen others have regular involvement with the chapter. Shipp said she has contacted other family members of fallen soldiers, but many have said their losses are still too acute to share.

‘MOMMA’S BOY’

For Shipp, keeping her son’s memory alive is a labor of love.

Her husband, Doyle, marvels at her strength and the hours she has put into the work.

Months after Darrell died, she began raising money for disabled veterans. Lately, she has become a point person for the effort to establish a veterans memorial in Harlingen.

And she keeps in regular contact with many of the Valley families of fallen service members and with her son’s friends in the military. A soldier who was spared major injury when Darrell’s Humvee ran over the bomb has become close to a son.

For Memorial Day, a holiday that took on new meaning after Jan. 25, 2007, Shipp plans to join other Gold Star families for a chapel service in Harlingen. She will pay tribute to a son who wasn’t afraid to admit that he was a big “momma’s boy” and a soldier who volunteered for Iraq when the military told him he was exempt from war duty.

The pain of losing Darrell hasn’t subsided, Shipp said, but she knows she’s not alone on days like today.

“It helps us, and it helps them, too, because it’s somebody to talk to for comfort,” Doyle Shipp said. “We’re here for those people because we know what they’re going through.”

Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.