Gold Star 500 bike ride to St. Charles honors fallen Guard members
Jim Frazier's full-time job is getting people to remember and making sure they don't forget in the first place.
His device for doing that isn't a string tied around a finger. It's not a sticky note, or a date circled on a calendar. The reminder is a Gold Star against a purple background he wears, and the name of his dead son.
Starting this week he'll have a new reminder of Jake Frazier each September in St. Charles, when the Gold Star 500 cycling event ends in town.
Jake Frazier was a 24-year-old member of the Illinois Air National Guard in 2003. On March 29, 2003, he was working with the Army's Green Berets in Afghanistan. Frazier, a Burlington Central High School graduate, suffered a fatal gunshot wound during an ambush.
He was returning from a tour of a school and a clinic built with American help. Frazier was the first Illinois guardsman killed in combat in Afghanistan.
Jim Frazier became Illinois' first Gold Star parent stemming from that conflict. In World War I, families flew the Service Flag. It featured a Blue Star for every family member serving during the conflict. When someone serving died, a Gold Star replaced the blue star, informing the community of the loss.
When Jake Frazier died, the street the Fraziers lived on near St. Charles was a sea of yellow ribbons to match the family's Gold Star. The ribbons are gone now. Jim Frazier moved to Lake in the Hills. But his everyday life involves reaching out to fellow Gold Star families as a support coordinator for the U.S. Army's Survivor Outreach Services program.
"I remember vividly how the city of St. Charles opened up their hearts to my family," Frazier recently told city aldermen. "There was a constant flow of condolences coming to our home even from families that I didn't know."
And now St. Charles will be the end destination for a new, 500-mile charity bike ride that begins today in downstate Cairo.
The first ride features 34 National Guard service members to match the 34 Illinois National Guard servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of the riders raised at least $1,000.
The money will fund academic scholarships for the surviving children of service members who died in combat. The four-day journey will take the riders through several of the communities where the fallen service members lived.
David Helfrich founded the Gold Star Mission nonprofit organizing the bike ride. Helfrich works at Camp Springfield, a training center for the National Guard.
"I have a picture of Jake Frazier up in my office," Helfrich said. "I interact with a lot of guys who don't know Jake's story. It dawned on me one time that we have a moral obligation to not forget the sacrifices that Jake and other heroes have made."
Helfrich combined that thought with the cycling enthusiasm of the inaugural ride's participants to create the Gold Star 500 event.
"Through academics, we feel their names will live on," Helfrich said. "There will be a Jake Frazier scholarship from now on."
The name of that scholarship is important to Jim Frazier. A name makes a memory real.
"What do you say to a dad or a mom who has buried a son?" Frazier said. "Offer condolences. Ask what their name was. Use that name, and say, 'Tell me something about him.' That makes us feel good. That means you choose to remember. And as long as you remember, his spirit lives on."
The Gold Star 500 cycling event concludes about 3 p.m. Saturday in Mount St. Mary Park. For more information or to donate, visit goldstarmission.org.