very time Evelyn Suarez wears her Gold Star lapel pin, she’s reminded of all her daughter, Hilda Clayton, accomplished in the four years before an accidental training explosion in Afghanistan took her life last July.
Clayton, 22, graduated high school in 2009 and two years later earned her license to practice cosmetology from Augusta Technical College. On Sept. 21, 2011, she joined the Army as a combat documentation and production specialist after basic training at Fort Jackson and photography and video courses at the Defense Information School in Maryland.
That December, she married Army Spc. Chase Clayton, whom she met in Augusta while in elementary school. By the time she deployed to Afghanistan last April to document oversees security missions, she had made the rank of specialist in one month.
“Every time I look at the pin, I cry,” said Suarez, whose daughter is the most recent soldier from Augusta to die in an overseas combat zone. “It’s still hard for me to accept she’s gone.”
For Suarez, all Clayton’s honors, both military and civilian, are wrapped into the purple Gold Star pin, which is the size of a thumbnail. The Army presented it to her at her daughter’s funeral.
Of the 705 people Fort Gordon Survivor Outreach Services tracks in its 49-county area in Georgia, an estimated 450 widows, parents and relatives of service members who died in combat have Gold Star or Next of Kin lapel pins.
The symbol is seen as a simple way for military families to hold tight to a fallen service member’s memory. But Army officials have said the legacy of the medal – now in its 67th year – is fading and that many Americans are unfamiliar with its meaning.
To raise awareness about the pins and the families who wear them, the Army launched a nationwide campaign in February to highlight surviving relatives through three public service announcements.
During Phase 2 of the campaign, which launches this week, Donna Engeman, a Gold Star wife who manages the Survivor Outreach Service for the Army, plans to travel cross-country from California to Washington, D.C., during the Running for the Wall motorcycle rally.
“We’ll share the PSA whenever possible at the stops along the way,” she said. “I’ll also have flags on my bike promoting the pins.”
The wearing of Gold Star pins dates to 1947. It was not until 1967 that Congress approved an act to provide a pin to all immediate family members of service members killed in combat.
“It’s heartbreaking to think that a mom wearing a Gold Star might have someone ask her, ‘What a beautiful pin, where do I get one?’” Engeman said. “We decided to do something to ensure the nation – the world – recognizes what that pin really signifies.”
Suarez said she learned about the pin last July after a mortar weapons system failed during an Afghan National Army training exercise and killed her daughter and three other soldiers in what commanders described as a “catastrophic explosion.”
Suarez said Clayton’s brother and sister, who live in Augusta, and father, who lives in Florida, each received a pin last July and wear them at survivor outreach functions at Fort Gordon or in the community.
Suarez said she is proud to wear the pin whenever she can. It reminds her of the promising career her daughter had in the Army and the nerves she felt when Hilda, small compared with other soldiers, was going through basic training.
“She was just starting out, but she had big dreams, always helping and encouraging her classmates,” Suarez said of her daughter, the only member of her family to join the military. “I wish she was here.”
Josie Suarez, Hilda’s sister, said the family held a cookout Wednesday to honor Clayton on her 23rd birthday. She encouraged others to wear or ask about the pins.
“To me, it helps to talk about your loss instead of holding in feelings of grief,” she said.
Approved Gold Star families can also receive access cards to attend events, view memorials and receive services, such as those available at commissaries, post exchanges and Army medical centers, on all posts after completing an application and background check.
Karen Lewis, Fort Gordon’s survivor outreach specialist, said the post has four major gatherings a year, including a warrior remembrance ceremony Thursday, and three support groups that meet twice monthly.
She said the pin says to surviving families that the nation is “here for you.”
“We want them to know that their service member is never forgotten and that they will never be alone in their new journey,” she said.