November 4, 2017 was a day like any other. Joe and Lee Cribben were in the back yard of their California home, teaching a granddaughter to ride her bike, when the knock at the door came that changed their lives forever.
“We didn’t hear the doorbell ring at first,” Joe recalls. “I asked my wife, ‘Did you hear anything?’ So, I came up through the side yard, and the minute I saw the two men in uniform, I knew what had happened.”
A Chaplain and a Casualty Assistance Officer had come to inform them that their son Stephen, a Green Beret serving with 10th Special Forces Group in Logar Province, Afghanistan, had been killed in action.
“I remember a lot of what I felt,” says Joe. “It’s like somebody just punched me in the throat. Our granddaughter, God bless her, said, ‘Are you sad because Uncle Stephen died?’ ‘Yes,’ my wife said. ‘Have a cookie. It will make you feel better!’ she told us. If only it were that simple.”
The couple’s first thought was Shelly, Stephen’s wife, former high school sweetheart, and mother of their two young sons.
“We immediately tried to call her, and started searching for resources that we could link her up with. She was our primary concern; with the boys, we knew that she was going to need help, and she was alone.”
It was, in these first moments, that the Cribbens learned what it meant to become a Gold Star Family.
The Gold Star holds a long and storied tradition in our nation’s history, but in recent years, it has appeared to fade from common memory. The Gold Star originated at the time of WWI, when families would fly banners in front of their homes that featured a blue star for each immediate family member serving in the war. If that loved one died, the blue star would be replaced with a gold one—a stark reminder to the entire surrounding community of the price that family had paid for the cause of freedom.
"It was, in these first moments, that the Cribbens learned what it meant to become a Gold Star Family."
As Joe and Lee began looking into resources that could assist their newly widowed daughter in law and two grandsons, they kept coming across this phrase: ‘Gold Star.’ “I didn’t know what that meant at the time,” Joe offers, “But I do now. It means that our son bravely gave his life for his team so that they could come back alive. He sacrificed himself so that a lot of other people got to go home.”
The citation for Stephen’s Silver Star, posthumously rewarded, underscores that this is not just patriotic rhetoric, but actual fact. Though Joe rarely shares the citation, he feels that it is an important part of understanding his son. “The story of Stephen’s Silver Star narrative gives you a better idea of the character, strength, and brotherhood Stephen felt on his last day,” says his father.
Indeed, that knowledge is what has given his family the strength to go on, inspiring them to do whatever they can to assist other Gold Star families.
“After the initial shock of learning that Stephen was gone, I went right back to work the next day,” says Joe. “That period of time was very much a ‘hurry up and wait,’ and I couldn’t stand just sitting around.” It took time for Stephen’s remains to return stateside, and with so many factors at play, even coordinating memorial services was a challenge. “We were notified of our son’s passing on Saturday and we planned to leave for Dover on Sunday, but his flight out of Bagram was delayed. Everything was uncertain, and this was happening in November, so we wanted to have a burial before Thanksgiving. It didn’t happen; he finally came back the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, from Dover to Colorado, and we hosted the funeral that following Monday. Travel and logistics were a nightmare, with friends of his calling and contacting us on Facebook, trying to make travel plans for the funeral. Trying to keep everyone coordinated when we didn’t know what was happening ourselves…it was a challenge, to say the least, and we were just learning as we went along.”
Even after the funeral, things for this newly-minted Gold Star family did not slow down.
“The first year after our son’s passing was kind of a blur,” recalls Joe. “It seemed like almost every month, there was something after the funeral. In April, Stephen’s team came back and they had the Valorous Unit Awards. Then a Green Beret memorial at Ft. Bragg. A Gold Star Family memorial at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley.”
It was surreal and overwhelming for his family. “There was just so much,” Joe shares. “So much information that had to come out in a short period of time, so much to do. It seemed like we were just ushered from one place to another. So many papers to sign, things to be processed, things that needed to happen. The whole time, all we could think of was Stephen’s wife Shelly. How could we help her and the kids? And we also thought a lot about other families going through this who might need help navigating these uncharted waters.”
It was healing for the Cribbens to immerse themselves in the community of Gold Star families, seeking opportunities to help others who had lost family members serving in our nation’s Armed Forces. The couple from their old hometown who had lost their son, a Marine; the parents of an Army Ranger from California who was recently killed in action; the Cribbens started to reach out to anyone they could and offer their support. Eventually, they went back to Ft. Bragg this past year to help support new Gold Star family members. “We met with many of them,” says Joe, “Just to reach out and say ‘Hey, we are here for you.’”
Throughout this process—the grieving comforting the grieving, all Gold Star families whose loved ones have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty for our country—the Cribbens say that they have felt like they had an angel watching over them and guiding them.
“We made connections that we didn’t know we had,” recalls Joe. “One of the other families that I was introduced to just after Stephen’s death was a Gold Star father of a Special Forces son, and they reached out to us. We were introduced by the founder of the De Espresso Liber coffee company. He connected me with other Gold Star SF fathers, and a number of relationships have developed through that.”
It is, he says, a deeply caring community of Gold Star families that looks after one another and honors the memory of all our nation’s fallen.
The two fathers now share a bond, as their sons lay near one another in eternal rest. “He’s been very good about keeping up with holidays and birthdays, always putting something by Stephen’s grave for us,” shares Joe. “When Stephen was little, his mom and I used to take the ears off the chocolate bunnies we would give him for Easter. It was just a family joke; something to get his goat. We had been doing that since he was a kid. And the first Easter after Stephen was killed, the Marine’s father came up to Stephen’s grave site and left Stephen a chocolate bunny without the ears for us.”
"It is, he says, a deeply caring community of Gold Star families that looks after one another and honors the memory of all our nation’s fallen."
It is this type of thoughtfulness and care that Gold Star families put into looking after one another, as they share the both painful and proud distinction of having lost a loved one in the service to our country.
Not just the families take care of one another, though. “The Green Beret Foundation was instrumental in looking after our family, Shelly, and the boys,” say the Cribbens. The foundation not only helped to fund travel for out of state family members to attend Stephen’s memorial services, but “They continue to check in with us to this day, always making sure that Shelly and the boys are ok.”
The team of Green Berets on which Stephen served has also remained close with the family. “When they came back from deployment,” Joe recalls, “the team all went to see Shelly and the boys at the house. One of the guys from Stephen’s team noticed that Shelly had a broken sink which she’d duct taped together. Without saying anything, he went to the hardware store, came back, and replaced the faucet for her—with two little helpers (Stephen’s sons) under the cabinet looking on.”
In short, say the Cribbens, “the Gold Star community and the SF community are amazing. We’ve been blessed, and so have Shelly and the boys, in having so much love and caring surround us as we carry forward with Stephen’s memory.”
Still, unlike in the post-WWI area, few Americans are familiar with what it means to be a Gold Star Family. I just hope to educate and let people know that there was a sacrifice that somebody gave,” says Joe Cribben. “If they can pass that message on, and tell just one other person what that Gold Star stands for, they can help spread the word. Someone’s sacrifice is only forgotten the last time we ever say their name.”
The Cribbens, and other Gold Star families like theirs, aim to help change that.
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