On Oct. 1, it was 11 years since two Marines showed up at our door to tell us that my husband’s first child, my stepson and our two children’s brother, Lt. Cpl. Christopher B. Cosgrove III, 23, was killed by a suicide bomber at a checkpoint in Iraq. He should have been out of Iraq, but he volunteered to stay behind to train the new Marines coming to replace them. Christopher left behind his mother, father, stepmother and stepfather, his brothers and his fiancée.

I watched as they informed my husband that his son, the love of his life, died in the line of duty.