For every soldier that served in Europe, the Pacific, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, there have always been anxious family members at home, waiting for good news or bad.
Soldiers’ voices are often heard, their stories told in news accounts and books. Less often heard are the voices of those left behind.
Robert Stokely, 60, of Coweta County, the father of Sgt. Michael Stokely, will be heard in a documentary 108 Hours: A Father’s Journey to Iraq, airing at 7 p.m. tonight on HLN, formerly CNN Headline News.
His son was killed by an improvised explosive device in 2005.
When Robert Stokely noticed a couple standing by the road where their son died in a motorcycle accident near his Sharpsburg home, the obsession was born in him to visit the site of his son’s death.
“I just wanted to do what they wanted to do,” Stokely said, to see the spot, to place a marker like the other grieving parents, who had erected a little blue cross.
Stokely got help from Soldier’s Angels, a California-based veteran and veterans family support group. The organization raised money and used contacts to fly him to the Mideast and get him across the border from Jordan. The trip in November 2011 did not have U.S. military blessing, but Stokely was protected by a professional security team.
They made it to within a mile of the spot Michael died in Yusufiyah, when religious violence in the town between Muslim sects caused them to pull the plug on the mission.
“At some point we got notice and it became a concern for the security team and they said they think (dangerous people) know we are there…and we needed to get out of there.”
Stokely returned home.
“Some think I shouldn’t ever have tried,” he said. “Looking back, I agree with them. It was incredibly selfish. It is not something I should have put my family through. …but I needed to see this place like that mom and dad who needed to see where their son died on that motorcycle.”
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