This Memorial Day, America salutes Terry and Beth Burgess — Gold Star parents who lost their son Bryan in Afghanistan and built a community for military families carrying the same loss.
In the hours before Terry and Beth Burgess learned their son Bryan had been killed in action in Afghanistan, Terry had a vivid dream.
“We’re in this outdoor movie theater, me and Bryan,” Terry began. “He’s on the movie screen in his uniform, and there’s a glass coffin beside him. He steps into the coffin and, when he lays down, he turns into my little boy Bryan, seven or eight years old. Then, little boy Bryan steps out of the coffin and becomes Bryan the soldier again. He gives me a salute and then the movie screen just goes – bam – white. That’s when I woke up to the phone ringing.”
The call was from Bryan’s wife, Tiffany, with the news that Bryan was dead. Terry and his wife Beth received an official notification through a visit from Army officers later that morning.
Upon learning the devastating news about Bryan’s death, the Burgess family traveled to Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies of the fallen are brought back to U.S. soil for the solemn tradition of the “dignified transfer.”
The next days and weeks were a whirlwind of events honoring Bryan. They met with their Casualty Assistance Officer from the Army, whose job it was to handle paperwork and anything else they needed. Bryan’s family received a Gold Star pin, the deeply painful honor that signifies losing an immediate family member during active service.
But soon the whirlwind calmed and the deluge of cards slowed from a torrent to a trickle. “The casseroles stop, people stop checking on you, and you’re just isolated,” Terry said. “After his funeral, after we got home from all the ceremonies, I just sank. I was unemployed, I was laid off, I had no purpose,” he said.
Terry’s wife, Beth, was afraid for him. “He would just spend days and days and days just sitting – not talking, not eating, just sitting. It was a very, very scary time,” she said.
Terry wasn’t alone; According to the National Academies of Medicine, the death of a child is one of the greatest and most enduring stresses a person can experience. One study found that even after an average of 18 years since the death of a child, bereaved parents still suffered from poorer physical and mental health than non-bereaved parents.
Beth started looking for organizations that could help Gold Star parents and couldn’t find much. “There was a lot out there for the widows – understandably – and for kids and moms. But there was almost nothing for dads,” Beth said.
A Documentary Film Changes Everything
More than a year after Bryan’s death, the producers of a documentary called “The Hornet’s Nest” contacted Terry and Beth. The film used footage collected by an embedded journalist who traveled with Bryan’s unit in Afghanistan. Helmet and hand-held cameras captured the 360-degree firefight with the Taliban that claimed Bryan’s life, and included an interview with Bryan talking about how much he missed his children. The producers asked Terry and Beth to screen a rough cut of the film, hoping to earn the approval of the Gold Star families before releasing it to the public.
“Beth got me out of bed and cleaned up,” Terry said. They traveled to Dallas to watch it, “And there was Bryan in his army uniform on screen. It was a slap in the face for me.”
Terry felt he suddenly understood what his dream on the morning of Bryan’s death had been about. “I thought, ‘that’s what Bryan was trying to tell me,’” Terry recalled. “I can’t just spend my life mourning the loss of my little boy – he had to die when Bryan became a soldier. Now, he wants me to salute him back, however I can.”
Bryan’s Story Reflects Others’ Combat Experience
For over a year, Terry and Beth toured with the film, visiting military bases, colleges, and other venues. Every time they watch it, “it rips us apart,” Terry said. “But I tell people that it saved my life.”
Terry, Beth, and the other families involved in the film were asked to speak at each screening. “It was a lot of holding hands and squeezing hands, a lot of tears,” Terry said. “It was kind of cathartic for us, because we got to tell Bryan’s story to so many people who wouldn’t have heard it otherwise.”
The screenings also gave them an opportunity to help educate the public about the ways that combat changes the lives of the veterans who survive.
“Bryan changed the very first time he went to Iraq and came home. He was a completely different person. And it was very hard to connect with him,” Beth said. “A lot of what we did was just to help everybody understand everything that the guys were going through when they came home, because they all carry a huge amount of survivor’s guilt.”
Reaching Other Gold Star Parents
In 2018, Terry published a memoir about the family’s experience of losing Bryan titled When Our Blue Star Turned Gold. It gave him a broader audience to continue to tell Bryan’s story and reach out to other parents – especially fathers.
“My biggest hope is to reach more dads,” Terry stressed. “We just want to let them know they’re not alone.”
Beth and Terry discovered a new purpose in supporting a network of Gold Star parents. But they found that the label is often restricted to combat-related deaths. They wanted to change that, and give every parent who had a child die while in service to the country a way to connect and help each other.
In 2017, they established a non-profit called Gold Star Parents Retreat. It is an annual, free retreat held in Gainesville, Texas, for parents who have lost a child serving in any branch of the military, under any circumstance – including training or car accidents, complications from vaccinations before being deployed, and suicide.
Bryan’s parents Terry and Beth created Gold Star Parents retreat and network in his honor.
“We bring them together to just connect with each other, talk to each other. We now know what they went through,” Beth said.
“We don’t try to fix,” Terry added.
“We want to give them just a tiny bit of hope,” Beth said. “You’ll never get over it, but you’ll learn how to carry it. I guess you get better at carrying it. You’re not alone — there are lots of us out here who will help you carry it.”
America Salutes Terry and Beth
As the nation searches for ways to recognize another Memorial Day weekend, they can draw inspiration from a 2011 American Airlines flight. Following Bryan’s funeral, Terry and Beth boarded a flight to head home. They were crouched in the very last row of the plane, emotionally exhausted. The Casualty Assistance Officer, who had been with Terry and Beth since Bryan’s death notification, contacted the airlines.
Touched by their sacrifice and Bryan’s service, the pilot took time to meet them. Taking Beth’s hands, he said, “I want you all to know how very, very sorry I am for your loss. I’m fixing to be deployed to Afghanistan myself.” The Burgesses shared stories of Bryan and appreciated the compassion and camaraderie.
As the plane approached its destination, the pilot announced, “We have parents of a fallen soldier on the plane. I would appreciate it if everyone would stay seated and let them disembark first. Let them go home.”
With Beth carrying their newly received flag in her arms, fellow passengers stood still, applauding them as they disembarked. As they passed through first class, a veteran stood up and saluted Terry and Beth.
At that moment, America stood with Terry and Beth. They were not alone.