Marine's widow makes special tribute at Arlington Heights Memorial Day ceremony
The support of a 96-year-old veteran made Katie Stack's task all at once easier and more overwhelming.
Al Mampre, who served in World War II, had been seated out of the hot sun for the Arlington Heights Memorial Day ceremony. But when Stack and her daughter approached the podium, Mampre would not let them stand there alone.
Mampre and everyone else on stage huddled around Stack, who was 19 years old when she lost her husband, her high school sweetheart and the father of their year-old baby in November 2010.
Stack drew strength from Mampre as she wiped away tears and began to alphabetically read the names of 25 men killed during a deployment with their Marine unit to Afghanistan. The widow paused and stepped back from the microphone to let her now 8-year-old daughter, in her little girl's voice, say her father's name: James Bray Stack.
"Even a 96-year-old man is standing for all the fallen who gave the ultimate sacrifice," Stack said of Mampre, the grand marshal of the village's parade. "It made it easier, but it made it harder to keep speaking."
Lance Cpl. James Bray Stack and the 24 other Marines served with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, a unit nicknamed "Darkhorse." Their names are etched in commemorative bricks recently installed around the bronze eternal flame sculpture in Memorial Park, the venue for the Memorial Day observance.
"We moved heaven and earth to get those bricks funded and to get those bricks made and have them installed," said Greg Padovani, the chairman of the village's veterans memorial committee.
Padovani, Stack and her family all agreed to pay tribute to the 25 who died serving the 3/5 Marines in the Helmand province, one of the most dangerous regions in Afghanistan.
"We decided to honor all of them because that deployment was so awful," Stack said.
She helps her daughter, Mikayla, remember her father by displaying family pictures around their Arlington Heights house. Every night, Mikayla sleeps with the teddy bear her dad gave her shortly before his deployment.
"She knows that her daddy made the ultimate sacrifice. I want her to know that she's never alone. She always has a support group and always has people surrounding her."
Just like they did on that Memorial Day stage.