A Soldier's Wife Fights Battle Against Her Sorrow

Gathering Celebrates Staff Sergeant's Life

MIDLOTHIAN, Va., July 16 -- Purple Hearts aren't always pinned on soldiers in uniform or during bedside ceremonies at the hospital. Sometimes, they aren't pinned on soldiers at all.

Sometimes, as happened here Monday, the prestigious medal for those wounded or killed in combat is given to a widow in a quiet, simple rite.

The soldiers of the Virginia Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 224th Aviation Regiment, gathered in front of Jeanne Booker's home outside Richmond, the one she bought with her husband, Staff Sgt. Darryl D. Booker, before he was killed this year in Iraq.

At the sergeant major's command, the soldiers snapped to attention under an oak tree.

Jeanne Booker remained stoic as Lt. Col. Robert E. McMillin II talked about her husband's big heart and warm smile. "He will continue to be an example for all our soldiers," McMillin said. "We will miss him."

Jeanne Booker wiped away a tear with her index finger. The soldiers stood silent and still. Then more tears came, and she needed both hands to wipe them. After a moment, the sadness passed. This was to be a happy day, she decided, one that mixed military formality with the intimacy of friends and family.

Darryl Booker, 37, died Jan. 20 when his helicopter crashed outside Baghdad, killing all 12 soldiers on board. Since then, she had had plenty of "I miss you moments," as she called them. The most recent came on Sunday. She went to church, as they always had. Darryl, who had a 16-year-old daughter and four stepchildren, was obsessive about being on time, especially to events he loved. And he loved church.

Afterward, Darryl and Jeanne would go home and take a nap, his huge, hunky body next to hers. He was 6-foot-5 and nicknamed "Big Daddy." Then they'd go to his mother's for Sunday dinner. That familiar ritual -- church, then nap, then dinner -- was what she had missed.

But Monday was a good day. Her husband was being honored, and she'd be courageous, just as she was when the casualty assistance officer came to her home the day her husband died. It was a new assignment for Sgt. 1st Class Steven Loar, and he was "so nervous," he remembered Monday. But despite Jeanne Booker's grief, she looked him in the eye and said: "Don't be nervous. You're among friends here."

Now Jeanne Booker, 42, was again willing herself to be strong. Soon the soldiers were coming up the porch steps to hug her and remember her husband.

McMillin recounted how during a deployment to Bosnia years before, Darryl Booker appointed himself disc jockey for the base radio station because he couldn't stand the music the previous DJ played. Someone else recalled how he scratched his car while trying to get around a sanitation truck. Someone else talked about how, hard as he tried, he could not dance.

"He could make you laugh, laugh, laugh," said his mother, Maria Loney, breaking into a giggle.

Loney talked about the day her son deployed to Iraq. She keeps a photo of him taken shortly before he left and looks at it when she gets sad, she told the soldiers huddled around her. "He had a glow on him," she said. "His eyes were so bright. . . . It just blesses my heart."

Later, Jeanne Booker told how they met in a nightclub. Darryl Booker walked straight up to her.

"May I have this dance?" he said, every bit the gentleman.

"And I said no!" Jeanne Booker recalled. "I thought he was too good-looking."

But her husband-to-be was patient. He waited until she was on the dance floor, and then he joined her.