A Family's Sacrifice

If anyone asks, these family members who have lost their sons in service to their country will gladly discuss their grief, to tell their sons’ stories, to talk about how it feels to lose a child in battle. In fact, they encourage questions about their journeys to heal.

Jimmy and Dena Lloyd’s son, U.S. Army SSgt. Chad Lloyd, was a member of the 4th Infantry Division stationed out of Fort Hood. He was killed by an IED at the age of 24 in 2006.

“They were supposed to come down through Turkey. Turkey decided to not let us [the U.S. Army] go in that way, so they had to go all the way around … to come in through the south,” Jimmy Lloyd, 69, said of his son’s unit’s activities leading up to his death.

Chad Lloyd’s wife was and still is in active duty with the U.S. Army. Jimmy Lloyd said she was given the option to return to civilian life but turned down the offer.

U.S. Army Ranger Sgt. Tanner Stone Higgins, son of Patti Sells, lost his life in 2007 at 23 years old. Stationed out of Savannah, Georgia with the 175th Regiment, he had been deployed to Iraq four times and once to Afghanistan. He had been on sniper security when he was killed.

“Dillon [Sells’ second son] was at basic training at Fort Benning [Georgia] when Tanner was killed,” Sells, 53, recalled. “They did give him the option to get out then, but of course, he wanted to go more than ever then. It was all revenge, and he really had anger issues that we dealt with for several years. He’s coming out of it now. He is 26 [years old], and he was 17 then. I had to sign for him to go in.”

Before Tanner’s death, Sells said the Army arranged for Higgins to deliver a Ranger contract to his younger brother at Fort Benning. The contract is Option 40, which opens the opportunity for a soldier to go through the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program.

“They called Dillon out of formation, and he thought he was in trouble. He [Tanner Higgins] said, ‘We all know you know how to fight with this,’” Sells recalled, showing a clenched fist, “‘But now it’s time to learn to fight with this,’” she said, pointing at her head. “That’s the last time they saw each other.”

AN UNINTENDED CONNECTION

Dena Lloyd, 68, said after they had received news of Chad Lloyd’s death, Sells visited with them to write a story for the News-Telegram.

“Six years later, she was living that, living her own words, so to speak. Even though we’re not talk-to-each-other-every-day friends, we’re acquaintances,” Dena Lloyd said.

The kind of acquaintances that will be there for each other no matter what because they share a special bond, Jimmy Lloyd said.

“We have that bond. … It’s part of a bond that you really don’t want other people to be a part of because it’s so painful. But you kind of rely on each other for that strength,” he said.

He remembered seeing Higgins’ funeral procession, he said. He was at that time the owner of The Shipping Zone and was standing outside his business when the car in which Sells was riding passed by.

“I remember you [Sells] were sitting in the back, right seat. I could see the pain that you had on your face. That’s something I’ll never forget. I understood. I knew how you felt,” he said.

THE PROCESS OF GRIEF

Sells admits she spent the first three years after her son’s death in denial.

“I thought he’d been snatched up by CIA or FBI or something. I really and truly did. … I was just convinced,” she said. “They kept his body 10 days before it came into Dover, and when I saw him, it didn’t look like him. … At the visitation I insisted I wanted to see his birthmark. They tried, but from the autopsy, supposedly he was all wrapped up. I was in denial a long time. I finally just had to think, ‘He wouldn’t do this to me.’”

Jimmy and Dena Lloyd experienced similar reactions in their grief over the loss of their son.

“Originally they told us he would not be viewable,” Jimmy Lloyd said. “His body was on an American Airline flight, then they brought him to the funeral home here. The military guy opens the casket and makes sure everything is, from what I understand, just perfect. The military liaison for his wife and our family came out and said, ‘He is viewable.’ Me and Dena really wanted to see him, but his wife said no, that he wouldn’t want anyone to see him. … We had the same thing: how do we know that’s Chad?”

“‘That was not my son,’” Dena Lloyd said of her reaction. “‘I want to see his birthmark.’ I was convinced for a while, that it wasn’t [him].”

While there are those parents who travel to the place where their child was killed, Jimmy Lloyd said, he didn’t feel the need to do that.

“Everybody’s probably got a different way to describe it, but I feel that a portion of my heart has been taken out and it’s going to be empty,” he said. “You rely on a lot of things — faith, family, friends — to get through the first few years.”

The families said they found support through Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors(TAPS). The organization provides opportunities for grieving families of soldiers to connect with others experiencing similar tragedies, retreats and other healing opportunities.

“For the longest, I would get their magazines, and I’d just throw them in the trash,” Sells said. “I didn’t even know what it was. The first time I opened one up and read it, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. I’ve just been missing out on a wealth of resources.’”

At one TAPS retreat, the Lloyds were presented with a replica statue of a life-sized bronze statue at Fort Hood.

“It was an Iraqi sculpture,” Jimmy Lloyd said. “It’s a soldier and this little [Iraqi] girl is standing there with him. It represents the soldiers that have been killed. This chaplain was one we met through our grandson who had been at Chad’s memorial there.”

“He presented us with this at the TAPS meeting,” Dena Lloyd said. “It’s something that’s very special to us.”

TAPS, Dena Lloyd said, “pulls out all the stops.”

According to Jimmy Lloyd, they were taken to Arlington Cemetery then beyond the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the area where the president of the United States speaks.

“They have a special section, and you’re right front and center,” Jimmy Lloyd siad. “You’re probably 20 or 25 yards from the president and all the dignitaries. … The one person we got to meet and spend a few minutes with was Lee Greenwood. … That was pretty neat.”

Sells had a different experience that taught her how angry she was, she said. It was her second retreat with TAPS.

“I went to the national retreat in D.C., Noah [Sells’ youngest son] and I did. We had our option to either go to the [Afghan] embassy for dinner or to go to the parade or something. I let Noah pick, and he wanted to go to the embassy, which was a surprise to me,” she said. “Unbeknownst to me, I evidently had a lot of animosity built up against the Afghanistan people. I just didn’t even know it until we were going to the embassy.”

At the end of the meal, she said, there was a video presentation about the benefits of American soldiers’ deployments in the Middle East, which include education, healthcare and economy.

“Then they said something I will never forget; it just made a world of difference to me,” she said. “They said our sons and daughters are humanitarians. … They made a difference. … They’re not all terrorists over there.”

Dena Lloyd said that most people don’t understand what the soldiers are doing in the Middle East.

“Our country, our soldiers opened up so many doors for them,” she said. “I think that’s something that most people don’t realize about wartime and about what our soldiers are doing, what our sons and daughters are doing over there. … They are giving people freedoms that we enjoy, that we take for granted.”

INVOLVED COPING

Both Dena Lloyd and Sells have spoken at the local Wreaths Across America ceremony as Gold Star Mothers. As the organizer, Dena Lloyd spoke at the inaugural ceremony held at City Cemetery in 2018; Sells presented in 2019.

A Gold Star Mother is one whose child was killed while in active duty. The designation has been extended to other family members since the program’s inception. The Gold Star lapel pin “has been used since World War I as a symbol for family members whose loved ones have given their life in war. It was not until 1947 that Congress designated the version we know today — the Gold Star lapel pin — as the official symbol of a family member’s sacrifice,” according to military.com.

Dena Lloyd said she didn’t know what a Gold Star Family was until she became one, and Sells reached out to her about the 2019 ceremony.

“Patti had reached out to me when I started advertising and letting people know we were doing it again [last] year, that she would like to help. I spoke last year [in 2018] just because it was the first year, and I couldn’t launch someone else into that position until I felt like I had done it myself,” Dena Lloyd said.

Sells eventually started the Tanner Stone Higgins Warrior Run that is an annual event to raise funds for military families.

“Just keeping busy was my coping mechanism,” she explained. “I am a single mom. I didn’t have the luxury of just not getting up and going to work. I had to get up and keep going. I kept busy. Definitely that [the Warrior Run] was part of keeping myself busy.”

Dena Lloyd said that her interest in Wreaths Across America was more of an extension of coping with her grief.

“Jimmy can identify with Chad being at our house, and I can identify with that too. But I have several moments with Chad one-on-one,” she said. “I do like to go to the cemetery. I do like to visit his grave. Jimmy designed the headstone, and it’s beautiful; it just speaks of Chad. Wreaths Across America is just something we saw on TV that they were doing in Dallas. … I love their motto.”

That motto is “Remember. Honor. Teach.”

“That’s my driving point, to remember them, to honor them, to teach future generations — our kids, our grandkids, our great-grandkids — the price of freedom,” Dena Lloyd said.

The events, both women agreed, allow them the opportunity to give back to others.

“I think it’s important,” Sells said. “I think the public needs to recognize the sacrifice. … Anything I can do to support and to keep Tanner’s memory alive.”

KEEPING THE MEMORIES ALIVE

Both Sells and the Lloyds said that talking about their soldier-children and their grief not only help them through the journey, but also keep alive for others the sacrifice that was made in support of the freedoms in the United States.

Sells said she remembers “distinctly” when Higgins went off to war and what he was like before and after.

him before one mission, which was unlike him.

“I couldn’t get Chad to tell me anything. He was quiet anyway,” he said. “The only thing he ever really told me, … he said, ‘Dad, I don’t usually tell you things like this, but … they’re going to drop me and a couple of guys off tonight, because we’ve been going through this town, and every time we go through there, they’re putting out IEDs and shooting at us and everything. They’re gonna drop us off at dusk tonight, and we’re going to try to get ‘em.’ I said, ‘I wish you hadn’t told me that.’ You just worry anyway. He was OK. I remember when he landed coming home the last time, I asked him about it. He wouldn’t say yes or no; he just smiled.”

“He was this rambunctious kid, but when he came home from that deployment, there was a distinctive change in him,” she said. “I have a picture my sister took of him. He just fell into my arms, his full weight. It was just the weight of the world. Something happened without a doubt. When he came in the door … I had to really look. I wondered, ‘What changed?’ He looked so different to me. Later I realized, he’s a man.”

Jimmy Lloyd said Chad Lloyd called