TAMPA, Fla. — For Gold Star families who lost their loved ones serving in active duty, the Memorial Day holiday takes on greater meaning.
Lorrie Fleming said she thinks about her son all the time.
“He was a good family man,” she said. “He had a little girl. She was seven when he was killed.”
Sgt. Terry List died in 2006 while serving in the Army.
He’s now one of many from greater Tampa Bay with his picture on a flag in the Gold Star Garden at Veterans Memorial Park.
The flags go up every year around Memorial Day.
Flemming said she still thinks about the day her son began his military journey.
“He came, and he told me he thought the Army was the way to go,” she said. “I think that’s a calling that’s in their soul. We talked about it. I knew there was a war going on, and he said, ‘Mom, if not me, then who?’”
President of the Veterans Council of Hillsborough County, Joseph Muhlberger, said the Gold Star Garden began in 2021.
He said it’s fitting that each of these fallen veterans is represented on the flags.
“You ask them, and they will say the real heroes of whatever that conflict was are those who never came home,” he said.
Flemming said she misses her son all the time but hopes this Memorial Day everyone takes a little time to think about everyone who lost their lives protecting our country.