“I knew what was on the other side of that door.”
Veterans listened to the heart-wrenching reminder of the price of freedom while others heard of that price in a way they had likely never heard it before.
Gold Star father and retired Senior Master Sergeant Harold Bargeron talked emotionally of “the letter” and “the knock” he and his wife experienced.
Everyone gathered for the Memorial Day service Monday, May 31, at Veterans Memorial Park in Blue Ridge heard of the ultimate sacrifice of the Bargeron’s son, Kelly J. Mixon.
Bargeron told how it was about 11:30 p.m. December 8, 2010. He was already in bed, but his wife was still awake watching television.
She woke him to tell him there was a knock at the door. Looking out the window, he could see the silhouettes of two Army personnel.
“I knew what was on the other side of that door,” Bargeron said.
They came in and began their speech with “regret and deep sympathy.”
After they left, Bargeron retrieved a letter Mixon had written to his mother and gave it to her. It was a letter that had taken a long time to write.
Mixon had joined the Army several years earlier.
He had told his Dad he wanted to write a letter to his Mom.
Time passed and Bargeron never got the letter.
Mixon was then deployed to Afghanistan as a sniper.
He was home on leave for two weeks during Thanksgiving, “his favorite holiday,” Bargeron said.
It was then Mixon handed his Dad the letter. Bargeron told the young soldier, “No worries son, I know what to do” with the sealed envelope. He put it away.
Bargeron described the letter as very personal, but read the first words Mixon had written to his mother, “If you are reading this, you know I did not return from combat.”
Bargeron then told of meeting his son’s body and returning it to the family’s home. “I brought our son home,” were his words to his wife, arriving at the funeral home with the casket.
“There’s a difference of thinking you know and knowing,” Bargeron said of losing a son and the true cost of freedom. “Now we know.”
Specialist Kelly J. Mixon was 23 years old when he was killed in action in Balkh Province, Afghastain, December 8, 2010.
Bargeron’s first-hand account of a family’s suffering echoed the true meaning of Memorial Day that Bill Stodghill had spoken of to open the ceremony.
He spoke of the event’s “one solemn purpose, (to) remember the men and women who died through many wars.
Remember them every day, because we enjoy our freedoms every day,” Stodghill said.
He introduced Bargeron by saying there are hardships that are placed on family and friends that have never ended.
Bargeron joined the Georgia Air National Guard in 1992, served on active duty with the Marine Corps from 1995 until 2003, then enlisted in the Air Force in 2004.