Honoring Heroes

When he heard about the opportunity, he immediately volunteered to hang the light.

Taylor Karr, a United journeyman lineman, said he jumped at the chance to install the 250-watt, 40,000-lumen floodlight on a power pole to illuminate the 20-by-40-foot flag waving above Memorial Field. A crane had hoisted the flag 50 feet into the air, making it visible for several miles up and down Highway 377 in Granbury.

“I volunteered my time to do that task,” Karr said. “The Field of Flags is a big Granbury event. I’ve always enjoyed going out there. I love to volunteer for that kind of stuff honestly.”

Karr finished his task a day before the May 26 opening of Honoring Hometown Heroes: Hero Banners and A Field of Flags, which ran May 26-29 in Granbury. This year’s field displayed 350 flags and 90 hero banners, according to organizers.

The memorial, now in its 11th year and sponsored by the Military Officers Association of America, featured several guest speakers, including “Black Hawk Down” U.S. Army Ranger Mike Kurth; former Army Golden Knight Aerial Skydiver, Sgt. First Class Dana Bowman; and Taya Kyle, widow of U.S. Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle, who authored the autobiography “American Sniper.” Chris was credited as the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history.

At dark, Karr said he drove by the field to admire his work.

“It was a good feeling to drive by at nighttime and see the light projecting up there,” he said. “It makes you feel good, honestly, to keep the flag lit at night and see the veterans and everyone out there walking through the flags and banners with the light I hung projecting on the flag. It was good all the way around.”

What started as a request from a Texas senator’s wife for the co-op to illuminate Old Glory became a group volunteer effort for United employees in May. Eight employees volunteered their time to prepare for the opening by mowing and weed eating, trimming trees and clearing away brush and trash in preparation for Memorial Day Weekend.

“Volunteerism is a major part of who we are at United, and we are always looking for ways to give back to the communities we serve,” said United CEO Cameron Smallwood. “I know for the co-op, as well as everyone who participated, it was our pleasure and honor to help the organizers of Honoring Hometown Heroes: Hero Banners and A Field of Flags.”

Mother of the Memorial

There’s something deeply moving about seeing all the hundreds of American flags waving in the breeze, she said.

Gail Joyce, affectionately referred to as “the flag lady” around the Granbury community and beyond, said she’s watched time and time again for the past 11 years as those who come to the event during Memorial Day are transformed or touched by the experience.
As flags wave peacefully, the air is charged with emotions, she said. It might be a lone veteran saluting a flag he bought for himself. Sometimes, a family gathers around a flag they purchased to remember the life of their fallen hero. They’re tagged with names and military units. Sometimes the name of a conflict. Sometimes they’re dedicated to all the service branches.

Gail said she came up with the idea Field of Flags after seeing a similar event while visiting her sister in Palm Spring, Ca. Last year, the group added the memorial hero banners after seeing a similar memorial in France and Abilene.

“I’ve just seen some wonderful things happen with the flags, which is one reason why I’ve just continued with it because it seems to be such a restorative action for a lot of people,” she said. “One woman told me one time that she had bought a flag for her husband and had not told him about it until they got there. She took him over and showed him the flag. She had written some stuff on the tag about his service in Vietnam. And she said he just cried and started talking about the Vietnam War. She said, ‘That is the first time that he has ever been able to talk about Vietnam.’

“We have just had instance after instance of something like that happening.”

Last year, the program expanded to include banners featuring the portraits of servicemen and women. Joyce said attendees can connect with the portraits on the hero banners and learn how many of them made the ultimate sacrifice—including two of her closest family members.

Gail said she belongs to a club of which no one wants to be a member. She is a Gold Star Mother. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the death of her youngest son, Sgt. James “Casey” Joyce, who was killed on Oct. 3, 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

The battle was the result of the escalation of a humanitarian mission to the African country plagued by civil war. U.S. Army Rangers were raiding forces of Somali warlord Gen. Mohamed Aideed for ambush slayings of Pakistani soldiers earlier in the year. Three Blackhawk helicopters were downed during the raid, 80 U.S. soldiers were injured and 18 were killed.

During the raid, one of Casey’s fellow soldiers fell 70 feet to the ground while “fast-roping” from the helicopter. Casey, a U.S. Army Ranger, had just helped the injured soldier to safety before he was shot in the back and killed instantly.

The scene and the raid were portrayed in the 2001 film, “Black Hawk Down.”

Following the death of their youngest child, grief impacted her and her husband, Larry, differently, Gail recalled. She read books—lots of books—on grief and handling the loss of a child. Her husband Larry, a Vietnam veteran and senior vice president for communications and publishing at the American Medical Association in Chicago, was driven by anger to see that some sort of change occur from what he viewed as a mistake from the beginning.

His campaign for change culminated in his testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee and a meeting with former President Bill Clinton. The committee’s reports criticized Clinton administration officials and the military’s use of special forces in Mogadishu and were initially withheld from the public. Larry fought to have the report’s findings released. Following the report’s release in 1994, government leaders changed policies on the use of American fighting forces in peace-keeping activities.

“He thought that they were making the same mistakes that they’d made in Vietnam,” she said. “He thought they had done everything wrong and what had happened should have never happened. He wrote and did interviews. He was on every major television news show that there was, and he wrote articles that appeared in every major newspaper. So, that was his way of handling it.”

Shortly after that battle for change, Larry died of leukemia in April 1999 at his home in Granbury. Gail said she often thought her husband died as the result of two conflicts. He was exposed to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam, she said. When their son, Casey, died, she thinks that exposure mixed with extreme grief and stress caused the leukemia.

“That’s always been kind of my rationale for why Larry died,” she said. “For Casey’s death, I have no rationale. Except, he’s a hero.”

Three decades later, Gail said the loss of her son has become even more impactful than when it first happened. She uses her story to connect with other mothers who have lost their children in battle. Sometimes, she speaks about her son to large groups of people. And while she never knows when or when emotion may overtake her, she’s never afraid to share his story or her own.

Doing so has its benefits, she said, and the strangest coincidences occur. For example, telling Casey’s story resulted in her meeting Todd Blackburn, the young soldier her son saved in Mogadishu. That’s also how she met Blackburn’s daughter, who had been named Casey in his honor.

“I know that sounds kind of strange because it’s been so long,” she said. “You think that the loss might be minimized, or that I need to, as some people say, ‘get over it.’ But I have found in the last few years, that what happened to Casey and what I have been able to do with that kind of keeps him alive for me.

“It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s a great ‘feel-good project for me. … If I couldn’t talk about it, if I couldn’t share stories about it, I don’t think I would have made it. I guess that’s the way I have dealt with it, especially since Larry died.  My goal in life is to make sure that people remember—that they remember those who have served, and certainly those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. I want them to be in awe of who our military is. They’re your next-door neighbor. They’re your family member. They’re your friend. They’re that person down the street you don’t even know. For me, I guess it’s just I want them to remember and to honor.”

Manicuring the Memorial

The Friday before the field opens to the public, a group of eight co-op volunteers (including one employee’s son) begins trimming, mowing and cutting branches to prepare the area for the hundreds of guests the memorial will accommodate during the holiday weekend.

United was one of four known groups from local organizations and businesses that volunteered beside new and old volunteers from the past, organizers said.

United Fleet Mechanic Jim Bob Nethaway, who served as a lance corporal in the Marines, ran the riding lawnmower across knee-high grass to manicure the field before flags were installed. He said he intended to volunteer anyway, but decided to join the employee group when he heard they were participating.

“It made me feel a sense of pride knowing why I was helping prepare for the memorial,” Nethaway said. “While I was mowing, I just reminisced about my time in the service, and how I miss the camaraderie that I was once a part of. I drove by the memorial park on Saturday, and it was nice to see how good it looked, and how I helped represent the fallen men and women that I fought alongside.”

United GIS supervisor Chad Pence said he was also anxious to offer a hand by cleaning away debris and driving in the rebar posts that held up the flags. Pence served as an aviation electronics technician and third-class petty officer in the U.S. Navy.

“I heard about the sacrifices that Gail Joyce’s family made for our country and wanted to honor their memory,” Pence said. “It was moving to see the co-op family come together to work towards such a great cause. It made me proud to be part of the co-op and have the opportunity to give back to the community that we serve.”

This year’s memorial was probably one of the best received in the 11 years since the event began, said Cathy Castro, Navy veteran and chairwoman for the 2023 Honoring Hometown Heroes and a Field of Flags. With a son on active duty in the Air Force, she said she supports Gail in her mission to keep the sacrifices of military members in the public eye. The current geo-political tensions helped make the community more supportive than ever, and she was thankful for the help the organization received.

“Volunteer participation is absolutely essential to operate this event,” Castro said. “The supporting non-profit 501c3 does not have any form of salary set up because it is not the objective.  Without volunteers, there would be no event to honor and remember the fallen each Memorial Day.”