Children of fallen fathers

By Nancy Lofholm The Denver Post

Lanae Maynard is making a friend. From a scattering of glitter, felt, markers and ribbon, the 4-year-old is decorating a cardboard cutout of a pretend "friend" for a preschool project. While she glues and sprinkles, she chatters away about her creation.

"She’s nice. She plays with her bear and her dad and all that stuff."Her daddy is in heaven too," she adds as she holds her chin in her hand like one deep in thought. "She wishes on the stars for her daddy too."     

Lanae’s daddy is propped up in a photo on the table where she is working. He’s 19-year-old Chad Maynard of Montrose, who looks stern and proud in his Marine uniform. The date he was blown up in Iraq is imprinted across the bottom of the photo — June 15, 2005, a month before Lanae was born.

Multiply Lanae’s loss by 50. That’s how many children with Colorado ties have become the often-overlooked casualties of war since 2002. At least 11 of those children were so young when their fathers went to war, they have no memories of them. Four were not born until after their fathers died.

These survivors range from toddlers to teenagers. And their numbers are unprecedented.

Americans in uniform nowadays are more than twice as likely to be married as soldiers serving during the Vietnam War era. About 40 percent have children. That is because there are more reservists serving in the military than during past wars. They tend to be older. Nearly half of the 83 soldiers with Colorado ties who have died in Iraq, Afghanistan or in training exercises at home were married. Just over a third had children.

Those children now live with photo montages and china-cabinet shrines rather than fathers. They clomp around in their fathers’ combat boots and comfort themselves by wearing their military jackets. They ask to hold the flags that were draped over caskets.

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