In a world where the anti-war contingent goes to such extremes to trash the image of the American soldier, a voice from the grave proves that love conquers all.
The story of how a well-worn bracelet found a fallen soldier’s Mother this Christmas is one that tops the list of inspiration of a most riveting kind.
It’s inspiration that stirs the soul based on the fact that even in death, Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield keeps reaching back to his grief stricken family, particularly to his Mom, Diane.
“The Fremont, Calif. Marine was just 19 when he laid down his life in Iraq, one of 20,000 Camp Pendleton Marines fighting off murderous Islamic radicals around Fallujah and Ramadi on April 6, 2004,” Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward wrote on Jan. 4 in [url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com]http://www.worldnetdaily.com[/url]. “Ten others died that day for freedom.”
“Although Layfield’s life ended in a blood-red frozen moment of gunfire, the family left behind to mourn his death continues to receive words of love and support.”
Young Lance Cpl. Travis’ body may have been long ago laid to rest, but the kind of spirit that took him into deadly Iraq survives even his courageous death.
That indomitable spirit made its presence felt in the beginning when, during his funeral services at the San Bruno Golden Gate Cemetery, a sudden gust of wind knocked over the photograph of the handsome young Marine.
Much of Travis’ remarkable courage stems from the Lakota Sioux roots on his Dad’s side, from a culture where the sighing wind reminds us of the braves who once walked so silently but firmly among us.
The gust of wind at the funeral left the Marine’s family standing in wonderment, and loving Travis as they do, the family interpreted the moment as a sign from Travis that he was still loving all of them from another dimension.
Then long after the funeral when it was least expected, came another brimming-with-life sign that Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield left behind more than a loving spirit for his mourning family. In the fall, came the results of a DNA test that confirmed the Marine left something of his physical self, a playful young son.
His family can guarantee that a winsome toddler named Dylan Thomas Stefani, born to their Marine’s ex-girlfriend, is indeed a warm and cuddly bundle of life.
“It’s a blessing discovering that there is still a part of Travis that will live on,” Diane Layfield told the Oakland Tribune.
“(Dylan) helped ease the pain a little this year.”
And Travis Layfield’s gifts in a form especially tailored to ease the aching hearts of his family didn’t stop there.
Part of Melanie Morgan’s mission to visit American troops in Kuwait this Christmas included the opportunity afforded by base Chaplain Lt. Col. Rachel Coggins to speak to the assembled troops waiting for their C-130 transport home for Christmas.
No one ever thought that Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield would be coming home this Christmas.
Delivering some 226,000 Christmas, Hanukkah and holiday cards to military men and women so far away from home, no one from Move America Forward, including Melanie Morgan ever expected a chance encounter with a Marine known as Sgt. Chavez.
Call it a one in a million coincidence, call it a Christmas miracle.
…”Ma’am, my name is Sgt. Chavez, and I heard you say that you are from the San Francisco Bay Area. Do you know Diane Layfield?”
“Yes, Sergeant Chavez, I know her,” was Melanie’s stunned response.
“Please, ma’am, will you do me a favor? I recruited her son into the Marines, and I have carried his bracelet with me for two and a half years. Will you give it to his mom? It would mean so much to me.”
Sgt. Chavez, 6-foot-1, all Marine-built muscle, trained to fight and kill our enemy, who looked at Melanie Morgan with “stricken eyes”, is a Marine image that rarely—if ever-- makes it to the mainstream media.
But it was he who gave a Marine’s mother a Christmas gift like no other, one that had a Marine’s mom marveling that her son has kept speaking to her over and over again, in the most unexpected and wondrous of ways.
“It is a Christmas gift neither she nor I will ever forget,” wrote the angel taxed with Christmas delivery.
And it’s a Christmas gift that drowns out completely the strident voices of the anti-war contingent who care not about trashing of the image of America’s most precious asset: the selfless courageous American soldier both risking and laying down lives to keep the rest of us safe.
Travis Layfield proves that not even death can come between a Marine and the love he holds in his heart forever for his family.
See: A Promise Made, A Promise Kept
Judi McLeod——
Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
