A Name. A Life.

A Name. A Life.

NPR-San Francisco Affiliate, KQED Radio Perspectives Series

I was walking my dog last week past our local cemetery when I saw a block of black granite behind the fence. The City of St. Helena put it there to honor our town’s fallen soldiers. Having never seen it up close, I passed through the cemetery gates for a better look.

On its honed surface, I counted five wars and 28 names belonging to St. Helena men who had died in combat thousands of miles from home. Each war had its own column of names. Afghanistan, a war still in progress, had only one name:

Darrick Benson.