Sacred honor

Cased behind glass across from the Virginia Capitol are 233 names and photographs of men and women who will never again sit by a barbecue grill and watch the sunset, go on a road trip or tuck their kids in bed at night.

On the morning of May 26, over 200 family members of fallen soldiers gathered at the 2011 Virginia Wall of Honor ceremony hosted by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Governor Bob McDonnell to commemorate their service and honor their legacy.

The event formally recognized the 233 Virginians who have died serving in the Global War on Terrorism since 2000, including 27 added to the Wall of Honor this year. Hundreds more gathered for the ceremony.

"Since Revolutionary times, brave and devoted Virginians have given their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for the cause of freedom.... Their deaths were never in vain," Cuccinelli said. "The faces on the wall serve as a daily reminder of the sacrifices that are made to protect this nation and its people. Let us never forget them."

The Wall of Honor ceremony included the playing of "Taps," a 21-gun salute, a MH-60T Tomahawk Helicopter flyover of downtown Richmond, and the roll call of Virginia's fallen heroes.

When Kyle Middleton's name was read aloud from the South Steps of the State Capitol during the ceremony, Marlene Blackburn buried her face in her uncle's chest and sobbed.

Middleton, 26, an Army corporal killed in Afghanistan when insurgents ambushed his unit of the 101st Airborne on Nov. 22, was among the new names of Virginians killed in combat added to the wall amid full military honors.

But he was Blackburn's only child.

"I wanted 12, I only had one, and I was blessed to have him. He was a pleasure to raise," Blackburn said after the observance that has started the long Memorial Day weekend in Virginia since 2007.

After six months, her pain is raw and undimmed. She quietly dabbed tears from her eyes for most of the Capitol Square ceremony. But near its end, the crack of rifles from a 21-gun salute a few steps away brought back the horror of shots that killed her son. She screamed, dropped her water bottle, clutched friend Christine Murphy who stood beside her and wept for several minutes.

"It just brought it all back. He died trying to save an insurgent," Blackburn said. "Sixty-four men in his unit of 200 have been killed in this deployment to Afghanistan."

As early as next week, Blackburn said, she will travel from her Richmond home to the 101st Airborne's home, Fort Campbell, Ky., to welcome her son's unit back home.

As hard as it was, she welcomed the observance because the uncle sitting beside her, Bob Galaspie, was among tens of thousands of veterans returning from Vietnam who faced indifference and even scorn.

"You look at the number killed in Vietnam and look at this war we're in now, and ... there's no comparison," said Galaspie, also from Richmond. "But this is the way it ought to be. I never want to see those who served their country treated that way again."

Middleton's picture is enshrined on a ground-floor wall in an office building across the street from the Capitol, which chronicles Virginians killed since al-Qaida suicide bombers attacked the USS Cole docked in Yemen in October 2000. Four Virginians died in that blast.

"This is the story of America," Gov. Bob McDonnell said. McDonnell established the wall and organized the first ceremony in 2007, when he was attorney general.

"When I think of our country, I think of sacrifice and I think of freedom," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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