This journal is one mother's two-year journey after her son died in the hot dessert of Iraq, were the sand drank his blood and cost an entire family their loved one's legacy. This book will take the reader to cities all across the country for recognitions her son received for his valor. You will accompany her to New York City, to Ground Zero, where it all began. You will travel with her to a building in Orlando, Florida and see a structure that now wears his name-and face. You will visit the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, were she says her last good-bye to her beloved son. This is a journey that took her all the way to the Pentagon, to The Hall of Heroes, to the White House to meet the man that sent her son to war, and finally to the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery. The reader will travel with her down the long road of grief and sadness. You will feel the extreme joy with which this beloved child filled her life. You will feel the anger and experience the pain in her heart, as she shares with you feelings never expressed before. This journal is about an ordinary boy from south Tampa, Florida who became an extraordinary man in a war-torn region halfway across the globe. The journal will have readers swelling with pride to know that someone loved them enough to die for their freedom; to allow them to wake up every morning and know that they are free and to remember that freedom, in fact, is never free. This is the story of one mother's journey toward finding closure