Though born in Honduras, Evenor Cristopher
Herrera considered the United States his country, just as he regarded his stepfather, David Stibbs, as a full-fledged father. Herrera enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2002, a year after graduating from Eagle Valley High School, joining more than 40,000 noncitizens serving in the U.S. military.
“What I think about the most is how young he was. How young he had to die.
“When my wife, when they brought the casket, my wife looked at his face and she said, ‘That’s not my son.’ I say, ‘Yes, honey, that is your son.’
“She was refusing to accept that. She was refusing to recognize that he was her son. And then sitting in that room. She said, ‘So many of them, so many thousands of them, and he had to be the one to go.’ Every mother who loses a son in the war says those same words.”
– David Stibbs, stepfather
