To the DoD, PFC Christopher Ryan Barton was KIA as a result of small arms fire on 24 May 2010 in the Khwost Provence of Afghanistan. He was, to the Army, a weapon of war. A tool to ensure that our freedoms remain free and the oppressed can become free.

It absolutely breaks my heart that Christopher was without his wife and family for the last 4 months of this life. He needed to be hugged and held and to have the support of his wife – not scared and in a foreign country that thinks it is still 300 B.C. I am having a hard time reconciling the last few months of his life in my mind. I keep saying to myself how much I wished he would have been able to at least come home on his mid-tour leave.

I know he had his brothers-in-arms with him and they are also his family, but I am a mommy at heart and there is a part of me that will forever want to hug that boy of mine.

When he found out his dates for travel, I was asking and praying that we would remain safe until he got back to the states. I just wanted to see him so badly. He kept telling me “mom – I’m going to want to spend a lot of time with Heather” and I would laugh because I knew they would mostly be at the house. He never liked to be too far from home and even though they were making plans to go to the beach for a few days, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had changed his mind.

I will keep struggling to pick up the shattered pieces of my life because I know that I have to keep moving forward and as much as I harped on Christopher about staying positive in adverse circumstances, I would be a hypocrite if I faltered on that now, but let me tell you, it is a struggle. I have days like today when all I want to do is sit at the grave and cry and I have nights like last night when I see something so personal of his that it causes me to have a meltdown.