Community Comes Out to Honor a Fallen Soldier

More than 200 people gathered in front of the Hernandez home on Monday night to honor a native son who was killed in combat in Afghanistan last week.

U. S. Army Spc. 4 Patrick L. Lay, 21, was a Braden River High School graduate who died in an IED explosion. Some of those who gathered to honor him Monday night, had never even met him. Others were close friends and family members.

Stefenie Hernandez recalled Monday how she had tried to talk him out of joining the army. Even calling a family friend who was a Captain to try to dissuade her son. She asked only that he tell her son the truth  about Army life, all of the stuff that the recruiters gloss over or neglect to mention.

Capt. Jerry Taylor, her best friend's brother, did just what she asked, but the conversation only strengthened her then 19-year-old son's resolve.

He understood the risks. He also understood how difficult training and fighting would be. Still he wanted to do something with his life that made a difference. Besides, Hernandez said, the economy left him with few options.

If he didn't truly grasp the difficulty and danger of Army life during that conversation, he understood it well by last spring when he earned a Purple Heart for injuries from an IED explosion that left one of the men in his unit dead.

"He chose to be on the front line," Hernandez said.

He was one of five men from his unit killed last week.

For Hernandez it is only her faith in God that gives her Peace. It is not the Army Sergeant assigned to stay with her until her son is buried, although she is grateful to him. It is not the other fallen soldiers' family members she met in Delaware, although there was an "instant bond that was very, very comforting." It wasn't even the respect bestowed on her son as soldiers carried his body off of the airplane the moment bathed in silence as two rows of soldiers saluted her son. It is not even in the medallion she clutches constantly, a gift from a two star General.

Even family and friends offer only temporary comfort during this time of grief.

It is only having the faith that her only son -- that sensitive kid with the wicked sense of humor who was for so long "a mama's boy" -- is with God that offers her true comfort and peace.

Still, "the Army has taken very good care of me," she said.

She was prepared Monday evening for the candlelight vigil. "The community outpouring will be very, very hard," she said.

She cried as she looked out onto the sea of candles, the flags picking up slightly in the breeze as the crowd first sang Amazing Grace and then prayed for her son and for some comfort to his family and friends.