Note: This article was originally published on May 31, 2004. We’re re-posting it now for our tribute to Colorado’s Fallen.
Thornton – There are moments, Terry Cooper admits, when she has
trouble coping with the loss of her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas
Slocum.
It’s then that she seeks refuge in his small bedroom, adorned with
American flag wallpaper strips and matching curtains. She sits in
the overstuffed chair facing the glass case that has become a
shrine to the 22-year-old.
“The room itself is actually more important because that’s all the
stuff that was given to us to remember our son,” Cooper said.
Slocum’s Medal of Valor and Purple Heart are on display here, as
well as numerous other patriotic trinkets, flags and a box stuffed
full of more than 1,000 condolence letters from people Cooper has
never even met.
“The cards themselves are what kept me sane, hearing from all
these people and the fact that they were truly sorry,” she said
with a bittersweet smile. “I wrote each and every one a
thank-you.”
More than a year has passed since Slocum was killed in a fierce
firefight in Iraq, and while life has largely returned to its daily
routine for Terry Cooper and her husband, Stan, every day has
become Memorial Day.
A half-dozen oversized yellow ribbons adorn the outside of their
comfortable working-class home in homage to the U.S. soldiers still overseas, while
inside, the triangle-folded American flag that draped Slocum’s
coffin offers a stark reminder of lives lost.
“When I was growing up, on Memorial Day you put the flag out and
then you went fishing,” Terry Cooper said. “You don’t really
realize (the meaning) until it touches you.”
Today, as many Americans enjoy backyard barbecues and campouts, the
couple will appear at a parade and then visit Slocum’s grave in
Fort Logan National Cemetery in the observation of the nation’s
most solemn day.
Slocum became the first Coloradan to die in the Iraqi conflict when
a rocket-propelled grenade struck the light transport in which he
rode near Nasiriyah in March 2003, just days into the invasion.
According to data kept by CNN, 806 U.S. soldiers had been killed as
of Friday in the ongoing fighting in Iraq: fresh-scrubbed teens with big dreams and career military officers with
families, representing a complete cross section of America.
This year, their names will be added to the roll call of the
620,000 soldiers killed in combat since the Revolutionary War, a
roll call that was highlighted by Saturday’s dedication of the
World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Although the numbers of casualties in the current fighting pale by
comparison with previous battles, to each mother the pain is the
same.
“I knew the day my son died,” Terry Cooper said. “We had been
watching TV (for news of the war), and that day I turned it off.”
The next day, a team of Marine reservists from Buckley Air Force
Base arrived at her office to confirm her maternal premonition.
Slocum, who had just re-enlisted in the Marines after his original
four-year commitment expired, was seeing his first combat.
The battle that killed him also claimed 25 other American lives.
“They say this is one of the most horrendous battles that you’ve
never heard about,” Terry Cooper said.
Her son’s body eventually was recovered from a shallow grave near
the same hospital where Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch was held.
Just a month ago, the Coopers received the final report of the
battle, two thick white binders accompanied by a personal four-hour
slideshow presented simultaneously to each of the 26 families by
military officers.
Stan Cooper, a Navy veteran who helped raise his stepson, read the
entire excruciating report.
“I don’t blame anybody, I just want to know what happened. I need
to know,” he said. “I want to know what he went through. I want
to know what he saw.”
Terry Cooper couldn’t bear the story.
“As a mother, I lost my son. That’s the bottom line. I don’t need
to know any other details, other than the fact that he’s gone,”
she said.
Instead, she has focused her energy on helping the families of
other soldiers.
“When Tommy died, we started getting all kinds of money in the
mail,” Stan Cooper said. “Within six months, we had over $8,000
there.”
The couple initially donated some of it to the Marine Corps Relief
Society and the rest to a local effort called Operation Comforts of
Home, which unites lonely soldiers overseas with pen pals on the
homefront.
When money continued coming in, they found another outlet in the
new Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Conifer that was named after
Slocum and two other fallen Colorado soldiers.
“If there’s anything that keeps my son’s memory alive, I’m glad to
do it,” Terry Cooper said. “I don’t want the limelight. I just
want to honor him.”
They graciously accept almost every request for an interview and
participate in any event honoring American troops.
“It’s important. People want to see you,” she said, although she
noted that many don’t know what to say to her. “I’ve had more
mothers who can’t talk when they see me. You wish you could give
them the strength that you have been able to find.”
Often, the couple resorts to humor to break the tension, but there
are times – such as when Slocum’s unit returned to the States in
June – when even they struggle.
“For some reason, that was the day I fell apart,” Terry Cooper
said. “That was the first time I could not function and I had to
have some help.”
She retreats to the sanctuary of his bedroom that she has adorned
with a pair of teddy bears wearing Marine dress blues and fatigues;
a glass-boxed hobby-shop display of a doll-sized Marine uniform, rifle and
dog tags; and a quilt given to her stitched with the words: “In
memory of a fallen brother.”
“We’re not afraid to talk about it because that helps,” Stan
Cooper said. “We’re pretty proud of him. We just felt he deserved
more. He lost his entire life. He was 22.”
