In death, soldiers' kin lay to rest tradition

KOKOMO, Miss. -- From the porch of James A. Chance Jr.'s mobile home, you can see his namesake.

There, he says, is his son -- the one who got his father's dark hair and broad forehead; the one who followed Daddy and Granddaddy into the military; the one who would one day pass on their name to a fourth generation.

Across the street, beyond a grove of tall oak trees, where gray stones rise from a field of green grass, a pentagon-shaped marble headstone bears the inscription, "Army Spc. James A. Chance III."

"When Jimmy died," the father says, "the name died too, I reckon."

With every death of a US soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, somewhere a family grieves. This Memorial Day, they mourn the loss of love that will never be returned, of memories that will never be made, of a life that will never be lived.

For dozens of families, there is an another kind of loss -- the loss of a tradition of names passed down, from grandfather to father, father to son.

For some, the death is a missing name in a living lineup, a lost senior or junior or third or fourth who had already passed on the name. For many, it is simply the end.

For the family of Army Specialist Eugene Uhl III, that ending came on Nov. 15 when two Blackhawk helicopters collided over Mosul, Iraq.

"He was the only male Uhl to pass the name on," said his mother, Joan Uhl, from her Amherst, Wis., home. "He was the hope for the family name."

As a high school student, Uhl listened as his father tried to dissuade him from military service.

The elder Uhl had served in Vietnam and earned a Purple Heart for wounds he received to his face.

But the son wanted to be a soldier, and he joined the 101st Airborne.

The 21-year-old Uhl was planning to marry his high school sweetheart upon his return, his mother says. One day, he hoped, his own family would include a namesake.

"He loved his name. He told his father, if he had a son, he would name it the fourth," his mother said.

Army Staff Sergeant Frederick L. Miller Jr. of Hagerstown, Ind., was killed Sept. 20 in an explosion while on patrol outside Ramadi, Iraq.

His father treasures a letter home, a letter of thanks.

"You know dad," the namesake wrote, "when I look down at my name, I'm proud."