The smile on Jeanette Rosa’s lips slowly faded as she stood back from her supporting cast to take a long glance at the tree planted at Fort Stewart for her late son.
Her gaze shifted past the bare Eastern redbud toward the installation’s parade grounds in the background.
“I still remember him coming home (from a deployment) right there on that field,” Rosa said of Army Spc. Alexander Rosa Jr. “We found out a few months later he was deploying again — before that year was up, he was gone. I didn’t get to see him on that field again.”
Saturday morning, Rosa was among hundreds to gather at Fort Stewart’s Warriors Walk to honor the memory of each of the 443 soldiers — including her son — who were memorialized with an Eastern redbud tree after they died during a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001.
Although the ceremony can be difficult, Rosa said, she has attended each year since her son was killed in Iraq in May 2007.
“It never gets easier. I always think when I come here that it’s going to be better, but it’s always the same,” she said. “It’s always new; it’s always fresh. I don’t know if that’s because I’m the mother — no words can really describe it.”
In its sixth year, the Wreaths for Warriors Walk ceremony — during which Christmas wreaths are placed at the base of each tree — is dedicated to helping the families of the fallen soldiers during the holiday season, said Bruce Muncher, a co-founder of the event.
“The holidays are difficult for all of us,” he said. “We all think of losses, and these people especially, they share that — that loss of their loved one who was defending our country. It’s just something small we can do, and it brings people together. It really does.”
Each year Ronnie Carver, who lives in Coffee County, attends the ceremony with his two granddaughters, whose father, Sgt. Matthew Gibbs, died in Iraq in 2005.
“My wife and I basically made a commitment that everything we could keep them involved in military-wise, we’d try to do so, so that one day hopefully when they get older, they’ll understand who he was and what he did,” Carver said. “This is — it’s emotional, but it’s also an honor and a privilege to be able to do this.”
He thanked all the volunteers who helped organize the event that helps ease the loss of his oldest son.
“We do appreciate it,” Carver said. “It’s something — you have a tendency to let some things slip away, but then when you come to something like this, you remember things that you haven’t thought about in years. So, it’s a wonderful thing that they’ve done here.”
Ultimately, it’s all about remembering, said Beau Bradley, a retired soldier who served with Spc. Rosa and has remained close with Jeanette Rosa since.
“We can never, ever forget,” he said. “And I never will. I won’t forget Alex; we won’t forget all these people.
“Warriors Walk is hallowed ground. It’s a place where if we’re driving by, if we’re having a bad day at work — in the springtime when these trees are in bloom — it puts everything into perspective. It’s peaceful, and it’s all about perspective.”