All our troops are special - but to all of us Angels, "our" Heroes are even more so. Based on our Heroes' branch of service, we become Marine Angels or Sailor Angels, Army Angels or Airmen's Angels (I've been all of those). We note our "officials" and "unofficials" in our email signatures, and proudly speak of our adoptees when talking with family and friends. We "Mamma Bear" our spouses when they grab the junk food - "No, Honey - that's Soldier Stuff!" We become rabid when we hear people malign the troops - they're talking about OUR Hero!

Those of us who are new to military jargon search the Internet so we know what that alphabet soup of a military address means, what the heck those abbreviations mean.

We light up when we see "free mail" in the box, or a familiar military email address in our Inbox.

We worry when we hear of action in their area.

We rejoice when they return home.

And sometimes, we mourn.

And although our grief cannot compare with that of a family member, a Hero's loss is keenly felt by his/her Angel(s). It is the ultimate in tragic irony to have a Hero return from war, only to lose his or her life when they are "safely" home. Sadly, such was the case with Charles, a very special Hero to Dea and her family.

The reality of being an Angel is that unless the Hero specifically requests and initiates post-return contact, our communication with our adoptees ends when they are redeployed home. And, so, we may not receive any word after that point.

Sadly, Dea and her family received an update on their returned Hero that they could not have predicted, and would never have chosen:

Dear Soldier's Angels,
It is with a heavy heart that we share the following news with you:

Sgt. Charles Higgins
LISBON - Charles William Higgins, 24, of state Route 518 passed away Friday morning, April 14, 2006, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident in Lexington, Ky. Mr. Higgins was born March 17, 1982, in East Liverpool, the son of Charles T. and Hope (Lilly) Higgins.

Chuckie had attended school at Southern Local and had worked as a jack operator at Freshmark in Salem.

After high school, he had enlisted in the U.S Army where he achieved the rank of sergeant. He was recently discharged from active duty after serving a year n Iraq and had begun serving in the Army Reserves.Mr. Higgins was also a member of the American Legion, loved to fish, and he enjoyed horses and horse racing. In addition to his parents of Lisbon, he is survived by his sister, Jacqueline "Rosie" Higgins of Lisbon, and numerous aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 19, 2006, at the Eells-Leggett-Stauffer Funeral Home. Burial with full military honors will follow at Bethel Presbyterian Church Cemetery. Friends may call 2-4 and 6-8 Tuesday at the funeral home.

Dea added,
He made it all the way to Iraq and back, only to lose his life at home. Tragic.

Our family would like to thank you and your organization for giving us the opportunity to get to know this wonderful young man and Soldier during his brief stay on earth. We will never forget him, and he will forever be in our hearts.

Respectfully,
Dea Lyn O------- & Family

And Dea was kind enough to send along an additional note. Rather than remembering Charles for the way he died, Dea and her family will remember this very special Hero for how he lived:

...I thought that I would share some more information with you regarding our Soldier, Sgt. Charles Higgins, who passed away from injuries in an automobile accident in April. I had contacted the local newspaper in Charles' hometown of Lisbon, Ohio, and requested a copy of the obituary. The editor-in-chief was so moved by our story that she has asked us to speak with one of her reporters tomorrow morning, and they are planning to write a story. The paper is planning to contact the Higgins family and focus the story on the two families, 3,000 miles apart, who have never met but have been brought together by a wonderful American Soldier. We really want Soldiers Angels to know how grateful we are to you for bringing us together. I thought I would share what I wrote to the newspaper with you, so below is what I wrote to the editor regarding our relationship with Charles:

Our Charles
Our family "adopted" Sgt. Charles Higgins in February 2005, from a the SoldiersAngels.org website, which posted names of American Soldiers who had expressed an interest in being a part of the "adoption" program. He was a member of the 463rd Engine Batallion, which was serving in Iraq at the time. We were matched with Charles completely at random - but there was something about his information that reached out to us from the very beginning. As we corresponded, we grew more and more fond of Charles, and as we shared bits and pieces of our lives and stories about our families and friends with one another, he became our good friend. Charles especially developed a close bond with our 19 year old daughter, Christa, who, by default of age, shared the most commonalities with him. Although he had a sister, he treated Christa like she was also his sister. The two of them would correspond through MySpace messages and cell phone conversations, and they would talk about everything - his family, his dreams ... and he would often give her advice about the crummy boyfriend she had at the time (she eventually took Charles' advice and dumped the guy). Although we had never met face to face, our whole family liked Charles, and we loved it when we would get a letter or an email message from him. We would gather around to hear whomever was reading the letter, and we would pass around the card or photo that he sent, admiring every detail. The card had pictures of lots of Army tanks on it, as well as a lone Soldier holding a sign that said, "Many Tanks". Inside the card was completely filled with a handwritten message. Charles thanked us for a shirt that we sent to him, as well as writing about the weather (it was 115 degrees in Iraq), and how because of the heat tires would be popping off the Army vehicles and the Soldiers would be going to split shifts. At the end, he thanked us again - not only for himself, but for his comrads, his section, and the entire Army. This was typical of the type of correspondence Charles sent to us, and we sincerely appreciated it.

Christa told me just today that when she talked to Charles he told her that he was planning to come visit California sometime around the end of this year. She said he told her that he'd been to Iraq, but that other than that he had never really been out of Ohio. We would have loved to have met him in person. We feel horrible that we didn't learn of the accident sooner, but I doubt that anyone in Ohio even knew that we existed. We adopted Charles (to us, he always went by Charles) when he was in Iraq, in the midst of his tour of duty. We sent him care packages full of junk food and fun little games and things. Christa spent time burning CDs of his (and her) favorite music for him to listen to. Charles used to write to tell us how much he loved everything we sent to him. He even sent us pictures of himself and other members of his Platoon enjoying the things we sent. He didn't know it, but we would have "Charles shopping sprees", where the kids and I would spend a day shopping the local stores solely for the purpose of finding special things to package up and ship to Charles! We did our best to try to keep his spirits up while he was deployed, and we always ended our messages to him with "Stay safe".

We were so glad when he returned home last fall. At Christmas, even though he was home, we sent him a package - just to let him know we still cared. Since Christmas time we hadn't communicated much, although Christa had kept in touch and sometimes talked with him by cell phone. In fact, she recalled that they last spoke the week before the accident. But shortly after that conversation Christa's cell phone had been stolen - and it had Charles' phone number stored in it - so she had lost his number. She wondered why she hadn't heard anything from him in such a long time, even after she posted a message on his MySpace page in May. Only after one of Charles' other MySpace friends contacted Christa, did she learn why. Coincidentally, it was the 4th of July.

We were all thinking of Charles and saluting him and all of our Servicemembers, as we were celebrating the 4th of July. At that point, we did not yet know the information that we would learn about later that evening. Independence Day has deep meaning for our family. Patriotism is important to us, and we are deeply proud to be living in the United States of America. Whenever our flag is unfrurled, we stand to honor it. Whenever the national anthem is played, we sing - even if off key. And no matter what some may think about the war in Iraq, we support the men and women who are there, working hard and making the ultimate sacrifice to defend what so many Americans take for granted - freedom. Adopting Charles was our way to feel like we were contributing, however small, toward making one Soldier feel like someone else in this great country - perfect strangers, cared about what he was doing, and that he was there. You can only imagine that we feel so sad knowing that Charles made it all the way to Iraq and back, only to lose his life here at home shortly after his return. And what began yesterday as a day of celebration for us, suddenly became instead a time for mourning. Our hearts go out to all of Charles' family and friends.

We would like to take this opportunity to say "thank you" to Charles' family, for giving us the gift of sharing your son/brother/nephew/cousin with our family. He was a wonderful young man, and it was completely representative of the way he was raised. He was indeed special. It's truly amazing how many lives Charles touched, and how far across the globe his spirit reached. For a young man who "never really left Ohio", Sgt. Charles Higgins will be missed by many more people in many more places than most could ever know. Thank you again for allowing us to share this part of his life. We will never forget "Our Charles".

Respectfully,
Dea O--------

And so Angel heads are bowed today, in honor of Charles.