Gold Star Father and friend Mr. Robert Stokely sent me this via email last night. He begins his email with the line “At the risk of overdoing it - I just have to write my feelings out." Well after reading this email I think you’ll all agree that only one Gold Star parent has ever over done it and that was by using her son’s death as a jumping off point for her anti-American/Anti-President Bush crusade. A Crusade that her son would not approve of, for he RE-ENLISTED to go to Iraq, which means he knew the risks, and he knew the mission and he accepted them as his purpose in life.
And now we hear from a Gold Star father whose words are only heard through us the bloggers that have had the privilege of being made a part of his family of friends, a Band of Brothers and Sisters that know the true meaning of life.
After Mike died, it was a common statement by many friends that this first year would be the hardest because of so many "firsts". Such as it is with May 1 and 2. Why are these two days important in our family? Except for Mike's death, they would be but one more day in the "life" so to speak.
May 1, 2005 will always be remembered for that is the day I picked Mike up at FT. Stewart to bring him to our house as he started his ten day leave before deploying to Iraq. We talked the whole way, including about his plans to marry Niki later that week (May 5) and just "stuff". Our family - the five of us - spent this day, a Sunday
just "hanging out". Later that evening, Mike took his soon to be 13 year old sister to an Ice Creamery called the Marble Slab for desert. That night was a true "last night" for it is the last night Mike Stokely will ever spend in our home. Mike left the next evening - May 2 - to go back to Loganville in preparation to marry Niki. He left around 7:30 pm May 2. As I was watching Mike pull out the drive way, car packed to go up to Loganville and meet his bride to be, he was essentially "moving out", car packed with his "stuff" he would need from our house - the home he lived at full time for the last year.
My heart sank, sad for us, but glad for him, for it was the second time I had given him up in 2005, first being Jan. 6 when he left his Griffin Armory to go to FT. Stewart for Deployment training. As he left, at around 8:00 on that May 2 evening, I watched and waved from the front porch as I always did when he left and I was home. Didn't matter if it was 5:00 a.m. headed to drill, home from a weekend visit as a teenager, going to work, or whatever, I stood and watched and waved. Then he did what he always did when he left, at a very certain spot in front of the circular gravel drive, he slowed a bit, tooted his horn twice and waved, then gradually sped up and I lost him in the trees along our 800 foot driveway. This was his signal to me "I love you and I'll see you soon". As I always did, as soon as he cleared the trees I would walk through the house to the back where I could see him come out of the trees up onto the street and down to the stop sign. Then he'd turn right and I'd lose him momentarily as he went behind the dam of the small lake we are on with others, and
then watch as he went by the houses in back of us till I lost him at the main road intersection. It was a 1/2 mile drive as I watched.
Oh, how I miss that sight and that double toot. For a long time, I cried as I went by that place in the driveway after he was killed. For a long time, I had trouble looking out the back of our house, especially if a neighbor's car was leaving. Even now, as I write about this, I am crying for it meant so much to me and I can never have what this simple gesture of a son to his father means. What made it so special? Because he did it just for me and he knew that I watched the whole way and it meant so much to me. It was a gesture that started the day he came down to pick up his first car that Retta and I bought him in 1998 at age 16. Funny the things that make a father and his son close - simple things.
Except for the life of my wife, Mike's brother Wes, or his sister Abbey, I'd give anything in my reach to hear that horn toot twice and see him wave, and then watch him drive that 1/2 mile out of sight - even my own life.
Thanks for letting me write my feelings - a key board is very cathartic to me, for the keyboard never talks back and patiently and diligently prints to the screen what my fingers type, including the honest feelings of my aching heart for a son lost in war.
Robert Stokely
Proud dad of
SGT Mike Stokely
KIA Yusufiyah Iraq
16 Aug 2005
Thank you for letting me be a part of this and your life, I know that Mike is still moving about and working in this world, through our connection and the work that we all are doing.
Thank you for everything and especially for your service to and sacrifice for our Country.
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