What Sweet Home stands for

Robin Frazier

I grew up in Sweet Home.

It was the small town where I was educated, where I learned musicianship and where my personal values were developed.

Those things I carried with me as life took me thousands of miles away and through amazing experiences, hardships and triumphs. I have been gone a long time. Even though I now live just a short distance away, I rarely visit. Perhaps it is because I had forgotten some important characteristics of this small town.

On Saturday, May 14, I began to remember what the small town of Sweet Home is all about while attending the funeral of Sam Huxford. Sam was a Sweet Home resident and a combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

I did not know Sam Huxford. I was asked by my old friend, Larry Thompson, senior vice commander at VFW Post 3437 to volunteer to be a photographer to document the day for the family and the VFW. Later, he suggested that I write something to go with my photos for the newspaper.

When I was in high school in Sweet Home, I used to play trumpet and often played “Taps” for military funerals for the VFW. When I left for college, they gave me a nice “thank you” and a small scholarship.

My family has had members serve in the military from the Revolutionary War to the present. My uncle Frank Eckles was given military honors at his funeral in Sweet Home in March.

I believe the VFW is a great organization, so I accepted his request to help with the photography. I am predominately a nature photographer, but as I am becoming more well known, I have recently been asked to do professional projects and assignments that are far from my normal genres of photography.

For an upcoming project I became a member of the National Press Photographers Association and took an oath to be an honorable and responsible photo journalist. Chronicling this event, I believed, would be good experience.

I did not realize how poignant an experience it would end up being.

I went with Larry to the little Holley Church, where dozens of participants were gathering in the parking lot. There were representatives from the Oregon Veterans Motorcycle Association, the Christian Motorcycle Association, the Patriot Guard Riders, the American Legion Honor Guard, the National Guard, Army reserves, the VFW and more.

The parking lot was filled with beautiful motorcycles, with their paint and chrome buffed to a shine. Many had full-sized American flags mounted to the back and fluttering beautifully in the wind. The members of the motorcycle associations proudly wore their leather with ornate patriotic embroidery, depicting the symbols of our country, the emblems of military service and sayings about defending our freedoms and liberty.

All branches of the service mingled together in brotherhood and camaraderie. There were both males and females and people in their 20s through World War II veterans in their 80s.

I photographed one gentleman who had a particularly impressive vest with an eagle and a large patch on the back that said, “The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten. In memory of our troops. Defenders of our freedom. Fallen Heroes.”

The gentleman had a flag in one hand and was pushing a walker. I am sure he was in pain, but he had a smile on his face. He was determined to pay homage to our fallen troops as long as he could walk at all and had breath left in him.

I mentioned to someone that I was impressed by the number of veteran motorcycle enthusiasts who had shown up that day. I was told that was actually a small gathering and that at times they were 200 strong. Their ranks were spread unusually thin because there were five such services going on at once in the area. The local VFW chapter had participated in 17 funerals in four weeks.

As I walked about the group photographing and speaking to people, I learned about the organizations, and I started to learn about our fallen hero, Sam Huxford. He had served bravely in Afghanistan. He had three Purple Hearts. He had sustained a severe head injury in the line of duty. Even though the military had acknowledged his disability, he was having trouble getting help from the Veterans Administration.

I read later, in Sean C. Morgan’s article in The New Era, about the horrific experiences Huxford had suffered through in combat and the great difficulties with post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered after coming home.

He died in a car accident, in which he was driving. I asked if his head injury could have been the cause of his crash. The general opinion of all was that it very well could have.

I also learned that he had a family and a young daughter, and that he died young – too young. He was just two days away from his 23rd birthday.

Even before the funeral started, it was already apparent to me that this young man had given his life for our country, whether he died over there or here in Oregon. It did not matter to these veterans who were around me whether he had died in combat or had died of old age. He would be honored just the same, for all time, because of his service.

Sam’s body was escorted to the service by a convoy of flag-flying motorcycles in a grand white stretch-limo Hummer, quite unlike the one he probably used to travel in Afghanistan.

The American Legion was there to do a rifle volley and play “Taps.” Members of the U.S. Army Reserves were there to do a flag-folding ceremony inside the church. Many of these participants have surely done this service for our soldiers a hundred times.

I photographed all of the steps of this tradition. One photo personally made me truly feel the tragedy of this young man’s death. Usually, as far as I had ever seen, from being the “Taps” player as a teen, there was only one folded flag. Two Army reservicsts carried two additional pre-folded flags for the female family members of Sam Huxford.

I learned that a soldier attending the funeral was the youngest veteran in the area. He had been honored at a recent VFW dinner with a “Challenge Coin,” by the oldest member of the local VFW. I do not know the soldier’s name, but he remained very dignified on his formal walk in with that flag.

Yet I could see the deep pain in his eyes from feeling the tragedy of the family’s loss. I realized that he was about to be responsible for one of the most important honors our country does for a family.

I could see the heart in that young man, that small frozen moment, caught by my camera, represented why all these men and women of the armed services were there that afternoon and so many other afternoons. It’s the same kind of heart that made them enlist in the first place. They were all willing to fight and die if necessary for America and the cause of freedom.

That Saturday afternoon made me remember what is good about the people of Sweet Home. I came to photograph a military funeral.

Instead, I photographed a town of heroes.

Robin Frazier, a 1985 graduate of Sweet Home High School, lives in Lebanon, where she works as a caregiver and photographer.

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