Army widow helps heal the wound
Group assists wives of fallen warriors.
By Monica Martinez at The Washington Times
Dressed in black and seated in a folding chair in front of flag-draped coffin, the young woman is heartbroken. Her parents stand behind her with their hands on her shoulders. A soldier kneels before her, presents her a folded American flag and expresses gratitude for her husband’s distinguished service in the military.
The official ceremony is over, but the grieving process has just begun.
That’s when the American Widow Project (AWP) begins its work. Since 2007, the nonprofit organization, founded by military widow Taryn Davis of San Marcos, Texas, has helped an estimated 400 new and mostly young military widows piece together their shattered lives. And it’s helped Mrs. Davis begin to heal as well.
“[T]o be around these women, I think I’ve been able to learn and my life has come together. … I know we have a far way to go, but I think we have the push and the drive to reach them,” Mrs. Davis said.
When her husband, Army Cpl. Michael W. Davis, was killed in May 2007 by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Mrs. Davis, then a 21-year-old college student, found herself alone. Although the U.S. Army’s casualty assistance officer helped her with paperwork and burial arrangements, Mrs. Davis said she needed someone her age to identify with.
“I didn’t have anyone tell me that I was normal,” Mrs. Davis said.
So, with the help of money she received in military death gratuity, Mrs. Davis started to organize AWP.
“When I was notified, it felt like someone just carved out my insides,” Mrs. Davis, now 24, said of the moment when two soldiers came to her home to notify her of her husband’s death. “Now I’m proud to call myself a military widow because it symbolizes my husband’s sacrifice and my survival.”
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