There are a few images that used to come to mind when I thought about war: Men in green camouflage in the 1940s smoking cigarettes and hunkered down in a field somewhere. Movies where soldiers are big, rough-and-tumble guys who like to drink and shoot guns.
Then, last August, my 23-year-old cousin, Sgt. Faith Renee Hinkley, was killed by a rocket attack in Iraq. I now know that there are mothers and fathers at war; there are 19-year- old boys away at war; and there are young women who you would never expect to see in a war zone.
I knew America was involved in a war in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. I knew there were thousands of American soldiers going in and out of these countries for months at a time. But I never thought to educate myself on why we were there and why we were losing so many American lives. Why they were leaving their families for months or more at a time.
What happened? How was Faith killed? Who was she with? Was anyone else killed? Did she suffer? Did she know what was going on? Who did this? Are we looking for them? And why did this happen to her?
I may never know the answers.
From the moment the news came, the world became surreal. I left work and went to stay with my family. I saw the pain and grief of my aunt and uncle. I witnessed the outpouring of love from the community, the tons of food coming to the house every couple hours and the streams of people coming in and out. I saw firsthand what a death does to a family, and I became a different person.
I am heartbroken that my cousin’s family had to see her body dressed in her Class A dress uniform draped in military honors looking like the sweet girl she always was. I am heartbroken that my uncle had to receive a folded flag from a brigadier general kneeling on one knee in a cemetery adorned with military personnel and red, white and blue from the coffin of his young daughter. And I am heartbroken that there is a headstone in a veterans cemetery with my cousin’s name on it. It doesn’t make sense.
Faith was the kind of girl who was always positive and always smiled and didn’t like to be mean; she much preferred to be nice. She made friends everywhere she went, from school to her extracurricular activities to the Army and all the way to war. Even in Iraq, she became good friends with the contractors, and she touched many many lives.
She was profound, and life without her has proved difficult for so many people. Its remarkable how many of her friends and family had tattoos in memory of her. We all want her to be a part of us forever.
My cousin had a smile that was always turned on. A smile that was so beautiful and inviting, it just made you want to go talk to her. She was helpful, smart, comforting, nice, funny, beautiful and just had an incredible heart. It’s amazing the stories that people have told about her on Facebook; random people she had met only once or twice but impacted their lives in some way would write about her.
Faith was a great girl who was working to provide better lives for people in a different country. Not many people can say they would do that. In fact, when she told her parents she was joining the Army, they tried to talk her into other ways of serving. She said, “What if everybody had that attitude? Who would defend our country?” That shows how noble and beyond her years she was.
Please pray for Faith’s parents, sister, brother, grandparents, niece, nephew, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Pray that we have Faith in God’s plan. Pray for all the military families out there who have lost loved ones. Pray for those who are deployed right now, and pray for their families, too.
Sarah Hinkley, Faith Hinkley’s cousin, grew up in Alamosa and now lives in Denver.
