“‘Why?’ I said.”

“‘I’ll tell you when I get there.’”

“‘No! I’m not moving until you tell me!’”

Robert then told her there was an Army officer who needed to speak to them together.

“I knew. I just dropped the phone and ran into one of my bosses’ offices and locked the door. I wanted to believe that if I never went outside again, it wouldn’t be true.”

But it was true. Kyle had been killed during an attack in Baghdad.

It was painful for Regina to recount this story, as I know she has done countless times in her head. It’s almost impossible to imagine the pain. But thousands of families have and will continue to experience it.

Yet, America – as the saying goes – “is not at war. America is at the mall.”

But America is at war. Americans in uniform and their families are sacrificing for the greater good of this nation and the world everyday.

Why the book? The idea began in 2005 with Rebecca Pepin, an evening news-anchor with Bristol, Virginia's FOX News affiliate WEMT. Pepin was regularly reporting losses of troops and how families were coping. So she decided to give something back.

In January 2006, she contacted me about helping her out with the writing and editing of Faces of Freedom, which would honor Americans who had lost their lives in the Global War on Terror.

The book, just released, is a compilation of stories of the lives of men and women from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. .

The stories were written by a team of volunteer professional writers and editors, and all proceeds from sales are going to Fisher House and The Wounded Warrior Project.

How do Regina and Robert endure the pain of the loss?

“Things like this book you are doing helps,” she says [crying]. “I don’t want anyone to forget about Kyle. It also helps us to be with other families who have lost children.”

I would add it helps Americans step outside of “the mall,” and appreciate what American families at war are sacrificing for us all.