GOLD STAR MOM: Phyllis Broomfield

His name is Johnny Keith Craver, United States Army Ranger.

Her name is Phyllis Broomfield. She calls him son and this is their story.

She keeps a room for her son, a door she opens like a prayer. Inside, everything breathes his name: the scuffed boots, the pressed uniform beautifully framed, the Ranger tab she once pinned to his shoulder with trembling pride. A portrait, painted by a stranger who somehow caught the steady light in his eyes watches over a folded flag that flew above the White House the day he died. Some call it a museum. To her, it is a heartbeat that refuses to fade.

Before he was Lieutenant, before medals and creeds, Johnny was a shy, skinny boy nicknamed “Poindexter” because he’d help classmates with homework and then teach them why the answers mattered. Karate gave him a spine of quiet confidence; the Army gave that courage a purpose. He grew to six-four, all muscle and mercy, the kind of leader who met his men at 2 a.m. so they wouldn’t quit. They called him the Silver Fox, Superman. She simply called him her perfect son.

In November 2005, he walked his mother down the aisle, smiling like a man built for carrying heavy things. Less than a year later, in Mandaid, Iraq, he stepped on an IED, climbed back into the Humvee, and drove his men to safety. He bled out on the way to the hospital, only thirty-seven years old, eighteen years into a calling he chose again and again.

Afterward, grief arrived in particulars. She returned the hunting rifle she had bought him for Christmas. “Is something wrong with it?” the clerk asked. “Yes,” she said. “The one I bought it for was killed.” People stumbled over words. But love arrived fluent: a friend idling in the driveway in case silence needed company; a McKinney officer who visits Johnny’s grave every October; Patriot Guard riders who formed a living wall when strangers threatened to shout at their sorrow. At the funeral, Preacher, Johnny’s horse, tossed his head and danced, as if animals, too, can recognize absence.

Now she wears the name Gold Star mother. Strangers hug her in parking lots. Memorial Day is not hamburgers; it is roses on granite and a whisper: thank you, son. She tells and retells the stories of how he coached Bubba’s first touchdown, how he nicknamed his girls, how his youngest now serves in uniform; because memory is a kind of marching order.

When the ache swells, she sits in his room and talks to him anyway. Grief did not end her love; it assigned it a mission. She carries his creed forward; lead the way, take care of your people, stand tall. If hope is a flag, hers is still flying.

The tradition of the Gold Star traces back to the service flags once hung in family windows, blue stars proudly displayed for each loved one serving in the U.S. military. When a service member died in the line of duty, that blue star was replaced with gold, a quiet symbol of sacrifice etched into a family’s story. From this tradition came the term “Gold Star Mom,” honoring mothers who lost a son or daughter in service to the nation. It remains one of the most sacred designations a family can bear.

Being a Gold Star Mom is not a title one seeks, but a sacred weight born from the unimaginable sacrifice of giving a child to the service of this nation.  These women stand as living testaments to love and resilience, their stories woven into the fabric of our country.