So we assuage our private grief with public ceremony. We enshroud our dark pain with bright flags. We expect politicians to speak for us all when they offer comfort to the family.

But what if a soldier dies and no one notices? Does that military life and death have meaning to anyone except family and friends?

"When our son died, none of the politicians showed up for his funeral," Bob Pesta of Cary said. "They knew they would get no public attention. Our son isn't accounted for in the honor roll of the 3,000-plus soldiers who have died in the war."

Bob and Joan Pesta's son Chris died at Fort Bragg last year. The Army told the family he died from a previously undiagnosed heart condition made worse by the painkillers Army doctors had prescribed for a back injury.

"When they announce how many soldiers have died in Iraq, they never say how many have died here," Bob Pesta said. "And the ones who die here don't get the same treatment as soldiers who died in Iraq.

"That's not fair. They were volunteers, too."

Chris joined the Army in 2002 to train as a mechanic. He volunteered for duty in Iraq where he served as both a mechanic and as a machine gunner escorting convoys. He earned the Army's Combat Action Badge for his many forays and firefights on the deadly streets of Baghdad.

"My wife and I lived day to day waiting for an e-mail or phone call saying he was still OK," Bob Pesta said of the year Chris was at war.

Chris came home safely and was assigned to Fort Bragg where he hoped to serve out his four-year enlistment. He met a girl named Angel from Ocracoke Island. They planned to get married after his scheduled discharge in September 2006.

On Friday, April 7, 2006, Joan Pesta was at home in Cary. She remembers what a pretty day it was, just a week before the Easter weekend. Angel was on Ocracoke Island, waiting for Chris to arrive in his Bronco for a weekend of fishing. Chris loved to fish and drive his Bronco on the beach.

Bob Pesta was at work. He had just called Chris and left a message telling him he loved him and wishing him a safe trip.

Then the doorbell rang at 300 Melanie Lane in Cary. Joan Pesta was taken aback by the three grim-faced soldiers at her door. She knew what it meant, but it must be a mistake.

"You have the wrong house," she screamed at them. "My son is back. He's safe."

No, they didn't have the wrong house, and no, Chris was not safe. He had been found that morning on the floor of his room in the barracks of Fort Bragg's 264th Corps Support Battalion. He was dead at age 22.

"We immediately requested to go to Fort Bragg to see our son," Bob Pesta said. "We were refused."

"I just wanted to hold his hand," Joan Pesta said. "I just wanted to say goodbye. They said we could not come and if we did, we'd be arrested."

It was at that moment -- when an Army functionary refused permission for the grieving parents to rush to to the side of their dead son -- that everything turned dark and sour at the Pesta house. The Army's explanation to the Pestas that there were no visiting facilities at the base morgue was not good enough for a family deep in shock and grief.

"There were too many questions and too few answers," Bob Pesta said. "No one one knew what anybody else was doing. They left us telephone numbers that didn't work or were connected to fax machines. Answering machines were full. It was a weekend and nobody would call us back."

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