Children of fallen troops find compassion at Good Grief Camp

Associated Press

ARLINGTON, Va.

After Brooke Nyren’s dad died in Iraq, she sat alone at recess because her classmates didn’t know what to say. One of Alexis Wright’s fellow kindergartners questioned if she was telling the truth about her dad’s death in the war, while others told her it was too confusing to understand why she didn’t have a father.

More than 4,300 children of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are growing up, forging their own paths while keeping the connection to their mom or dad alive in ways ranging from annual backyard barbecues on the anniversary of the parent’s death to keeping a music box of his favorite song.

They’ve endured awkward conversations with people unsure how to respond when they describe how their parent — typically their father — died in the war and unkind remarks from friends at school. Many of them lost not just a parent but their home, too, because they had to move off a military base. As painful as their memories are, those interviewed at a camp for children of the fallen say the experience has made them more compassiontate.

The kids interviewed describe the annual Good Grief Camp organized by the nonprofit Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors every Memorial Day weekend as one outlet that’s allowed them to learn to work through their feelings, and many attend every year. The activities range from going to a baseball game and seeing the horses used at Arlington National Cemetery to writing a letter to their deceased parent that’s released in a balloon. Each kid has a mentor for the weekend — many of them current members of the military sporting crew cuts. While the kids participate in the camp, hundreds of other adult survivors meet for sessions designed for them.

Danielle Miller, 16, of Flint, Mich., said she’s gotten used to people apologizing profusely for asking questions that led to her saying her dad, Capt. Lowell Miller II, died at war. Eleven at the time of her father’s death in 2005 from small-arms fire in Iraq, she said she’s planning to study business and pastry making because her dad was the chef in the house.

“I’m like, ‘Thank you for your concern, but it’s OK, I’ve learned to deal with it, I’m OK talking with it. You don’t have to be sorry for bringing it up,’” said Miller, sporting a red T-shirt worn by all the camp kids at a hotel not far from the Pentagon.

Brooke Nyren, now 14, has attended for at least six years, and she said she looks for those who are new. She knows what it’s like to feel alone.

“When it first happened, when I went back to school, no one talked to me because they were afraid that whatever they would say would hurt me, but I think they should understand that we’re still the same people that we were before,” said Brooke, of Reston, Va., the daughter of Staff Sgt. Nathaniel Nyren, who died in 2005 in Iraq in a humvee accident.

The kids who attend the camp aren’t just the children of the more than 6,000 troops who have died in the current conflicts, but also children of service members or veterans who died stateside from causes such as suicide or the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.