When Kisha Patterson last spoke to her husband, Esau, it was an ordinary conversation under extraordinary circumstances. “We talked that morning,” she said. “It was like any other day. He was like, ‘Hey, I’ll call you back.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ You know, not thinking too much of it, kind of took it for granted.”
In April of 2004, Army Staff Sergeant Esau Patterson was serving in Iraq. They’d met years earlier in church, at Ft. Benning in Georgia. They got married, had two children, and were planning a family reunion for when he returned.
But then came a knock at the door. “And there’s two uniformed service members standing there,” said Kisha. “And they looked at me, and I could see tears in their eyes, and that’s when I knew.”
A car bomb had killed her husband. He was 25 years old. “I would never get to say goodbye,” she said. “I would never get to touch him. I would never get to do anything else.”
I asked, “What did it mean to you to have service members there with you?”
“It meant that what he died for was okay, that he was truly protecting and serving this country,” Kisha replied.
Those soldiers were carrying out a solemn duty that had not always been performed. During the Civil War, the military had no formal casualty notification system. Occasionally families would receive a letter. By World War I and through the Vietnam War, the military was sending telegrams, until an Army wife named Julia Moore (known as Julie) stepped in.
“She completely changed the culture of the military,” said her son, Greg Moore. “In 1965, during the Battle of the Ia Drang, death notices were delivered to spouses by telegrams and taxicabs. Cold, cruel, dispassionate. She was outraged.”
Julie Moore’s husband, Hal, was a highly-regarded Lt. Colonel then serving in Vietnam when, as she described in a letter, a taxi driver pulled up to her house: “When he rang the bell I decided not to answer; that way, everything would be all right,” she wrote. “I finally said to myself, ‘Come on, Julie, you have to face up to what’s to come, so go answer the door.”
It turned out, the driver needed directions.
Greg Moore said, “At that moment, she knew what it felt to get that telegram, and she never wanted to have anybody else get that telegram and not have somebody physically with them.”
So, Julie Moore made a deal with the local Western Union office: they would call her whenever a telegram came.
The 2002 movie “We Were Soldiers” portrayed how Julie Moore would rush to comfort the widows.
Even as she cared for her five young children, Moore helped other Army wives on the home front, as she recounted in a 2001 interview: “I think people forget that these men had families. And these families had problems. And the wives are left alone to deal with them as best they can. And these women were really up to the task. They really were.”
Together, the Army wives successfully lobbied the base commander. Julie’s son Dave Moore said, “What they really wanted was the Army to make a fundamental change, which they did, in that the Army should take responsibility for delivering these telegrams to the wives and personally care for the spouse during that time of cathartic change.”
Service members now notify families in person, and offer additional support.
When Army Sgt. First Class Kendrick Ray delivered a casualty notification in 2021, it was a sacred mission. Now, he helps families in the days after. Asked what goes through his mind before he knocks on the door, Ray replied, “I just said a prayer, like, ‘How can I be of service to this family? I don’t know what they’re going through, but give me strength to, you know, face whatever it is once I ring the doorbell.’
“I believe now it’s my purpose,” he said. “I can let people know, like, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. we’re right here with you, every step of the way.'”
Julie Moore died in 2004. Her husband died 13 years later.
In 2023, the Pentagon renamed Ft. Benning Ft. Moore to honor them both. It marked the first time an American military base had been named for a civilian.
Dave Moore said, “It’s not a legacy she asked for; it’s a legacy she built herself towards. And the hero rises to a moment and achieves great things.”
This year, the Army post was re-named Ft. Benning. But just down the road, at the National Infantry Museum, her name endures.
I asked Kisha Patterson, “When you think about what she did, what comes to your mind?”
“She’s phenomenal,” Patterson replied. “I can’t imagine having received a telegram with that information on it. So, I just thank her. There’re husbands that endure this same pain. There are mothers and fathers, there are children that get these knocks. So, she has, yes, she has truly made a difference for all of us.”
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Story produced by Robbyn McFadden. Editor: Joseph Frandino.