NC group starts chapter to honor military lives

By MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ The Daily Reflector of Greenville

A new organization established a Pitt County chapter recently with a mission to have Congress recognize a national symbol of gratitude and recognition for lives lost in military service.

"Honor and Remember" is named for the emblem's motto. The local chapter is one of two now opened; the founding chapter is in Virginia.

The Daily Reflector of Greenville reported that Kathy Moore of Ayden will lead the new chapter at her home. Her son, Army Spc. Ryan Russell, served as a cavalry medic until he was killed in March 2007 by an improvised explosive device while serving in Baquba, Iraq.

Only a dozen or so people turned out for the unheralded ceremony in the yard of Moore's home in the Pitt County countryside. But the emblem - stark, bold and unmistakable in its message seen on a windswept banner - would stand out among a much larger crowd, and that is its designer's goal.

George Lutz, founder of Honor and Remember, drove from his Virginia home, where he had established the organization's charter chapter, for the recent ceremony. His son, George Anthony "Tony" Lutz II, was killed on Dec. 29, 2005, by a sniper's bullet while he was on patrol in Fallujah, Iraq.

In the months that followed Tony's funeral, his father visited other families who had lost loved ones in the Iraq war.

He began to sense that he had joined the ranks of a unique fellowship, he said.

"These families were only the latest additions to a group that originated with the American Revolution, when the first soldiers to shed their blood for our freedom gave their lives," Lutz said.

The Honor and Remember founder said the organization's three purposes are to establish the national symbol, educate Americans about its meaning, and present it as a tribute to every soldier's life lost, and as a gift of gratitude to the families who have experienced a devastating loss.

"As a nation we are always using the term 'support our troops' without realizing that the troops also include those that have fallen. The nation will remember them on Memorial Day, but the friends, comrades and loved ones remember them every day. It occurred to me that there is a void between the nation's way of remembering and those people's way. This emblem is a way of making a statement of gratitude."

Lutz noticed that there was a nationally recognized flag to symbolize the missing and prisoners of wars past and present, but none for the fallen who far outnumber those.

"So great a number who paid such a price but cannot speak for themselves should have a public symbol," Lutz said.

The emblem consists of a red and white field on which an eternal flame burns inside a gold star, which the military gives to every family that loses a loved one to war, and a triangular furled flag in the style of those presented at military funerals tucked between the lower two points of the star.

The words "Honor and Remember" are printed below the emblem.

The symbol is not for the families of the lost to have and bear, but for the rest of Americans who have not suffered that loss as personally, Lutz said.

"The families get it. They understand. This is for the nation as a way to say, 'Thank you," he said. "If I (as a survivor) drive through a neighborhood and see the symbol on a flag or in a window or on a mailbox, I'm going to know that person cares that somebody lost his or her life in sacrifice for the country. It's a way to express visible appreciation for those sacrifices," Lutz said.

Moore keeps her son's memory alive in many ways, including her support for other local families who lose a loved one.

"I've seen mothers just stop living. They might quit a job and become secluded. I asked myself what Ryan would want me to do," she said.

Moore said she wants the nation to have a way to display its gratitude year-round to surviving members of all service families.

"So many people forget the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers and all the people affected by the loss of their fallen loved one," Moore explained.

"This is a way we have to let them know we haven't forgotten their sacrifices."

If the flag is approved by Congress as a national symbol, when surviving family members see it they will recognize the gratitude it represents, Moore said.

Funds raised by the sale of flags, emblems and other items bearing the emblem will be used to produce more of the items and to lobby Congress for the adoption of the symbol, Moore said.

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Information from: The Daily Reflector, http://www.reflector.com">http://www.reflector.com