On Memorial Day, a new marker in Cary honors the families service members left behind
When people learn that Sonia Rodriguez is a Gold Star Mother, it’s clear some of them don’t know what it means.
“They say, ‘Oh, congratulations,’” Rodriguez said, as if it’s an achievement that she sought. “I say, ‘Let me explain to you what it is.’”
Rodriguez became a Gold Star Mother on April 6, 2005, when her son, Army Chief Warrant Officer David Ayala, was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan at age 24. The name refers to the gold stars that the families of fallen service members hung in their windows during World War II.
The loss of her son 19 years ago is why Rodriguez came from her home in Hillsborough to attend the Memorial Day observance at Veterans Freedom Park in Cary on Monday.
The town used the occasion to dedicate a new memorial to Gold Star Families. The marker, a project of the Cary Garden Club, honors others like Rodriguez who also sacrifice when service members die.
“This is very personal to me,” she said, standing in front of the cast aluminum marker shortly after it was unveiled. “Because the families suffer. They’re the living. They’re the ones that stay behind with the memories of the loss, the void, that emptiness, the brokenness of the heart.”
The Gold Star Memorial in the Cary park stands next to a Blue Star one dedicated last year to honor all service members. Garden clubs across the country began erecting Blue Star memorials along highways in the final year of World War II and have placed more than 3,350, including a growing number in cemeteries and other public places, said Paula Hartman of the Garden Club of North Carolina.
Gold Star Memorials are a more recent project and much rarer. The one in Cary is the 147th in the country and only the seventh in North Carolina, Hartman said.
“While heroes pay the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, survivors live daily with the pain for this sacrifice,” Hartman told a crowd of more than 200 at the ceremony. “These Gold Star Families markers serve as a lasting tribute to remember and honor their child’s sacrifice.”
Among those attending was Courtney Chavez, whose son, Air Force Staff Sgt. Zachary Wood Lyon Jr., died in a motorcycle accident while stationed at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma two years ago. Lyon, who enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from Broughton High School, was 24.
Chavez told the crowd that the metal marker is symbolic.
“The installation of this memorial demonstrates that you — all of you, all of you here — care about our military community and our survivor families,” she said. “It represents compassion and respect, and for such an incredible gift to our Gold Star Families, I am thankful.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2024 at 6:18 PM.
