Fern Holland

It is Sunday August 3,2025, the end of the weekend. I am still working, not retired. I'll be back at work tomorrow and Tuesday August 5,2025 will just really be more of the same. Today, now is my time with you, two days before your birthday. August 5,2025, you would have been 55 years old. I am way past 55, but I remember 50 and 55 being momentous. I saw what you were doing in Iraq but there was nothing that either of us could have done or said that would have prevented the horror that...

It's a Friday, 36 hours away from that time 21 years ago when you were killed. It's the end of the day, the end of the week and I am alone in my office at work just as it was when we first met many years ago. You would think that I would have somewhere to go, particularly now at the beginning of a weekend, but the truth is this is my time for you.
I've never recovered from the tragedy of your life. I've had very few days when I have not thought of you and of all the promise ahead of you...

A war is not a good time or place to make long-lasting loving relationships. But it has been my experience that the friends I have lost in war, I also don't forget. I lost you and Ken Begley in Iraq. There may have been others, but I was a contractor not military, not civilian and contractor deaths for the most part were announced once and then no more. You were the first and the exception. Regardless of whether you were the first, you were memorialized largely due to your impact. Our meeting...

I have worked as a DoD Contractor for 24 years now. On May 31,2024 I will stop working. I thought I held a title and a position of prestige and authority, but I was mistaken. Fern was a DoD contractor too. I believe she felt she had some authority and the ability and power to accomplish her job in Iraq. I know at least one thing about Fern. I know she tried very hard night and day to accomplish her job, her mission. Today is Memorial Day. The US celebrates and remembers those like Fern...

Remembering you twenty years after that tragic day, Fern. But the ripple you started in Iraq at that time continues to inspire people today. It will produce incredible amounts of fruit. In many places around the world, it already has. You are greatly missed and dearly loved, and you will never be forgotten.

I remember your eyes..... not quite blue not quite green....almost the color of Hyacinths, Hydrangeas, or Morning Glorys maybe but not quite that blue...As an amatuer gardener, I learned that the color of a flowering plant depends very much on the acidity of the soil. In strongly acid soil (pH below 6), flowers turn blue. In alkaline soil (pH above 7), flowers turn pink or even red. This is the 20th year of your assassination. On March 9,2004, we lost you, Bob Zangas and Salwa Ourmashi....

I recently saw a documentary on the life of Mickey Mantle, who grew up in Commerce OK less than 30 minutes from Blue Jacket, OK. And on this the 20th anniversary of Fern's murder, maybe I understand better what motivated her to live her life with such intensity. I will always love her for that passion. She was willing to exhaust herself for the sake of others that needed her help and she was always willing to give that love and encouragement. Fern will forever be in my thoughts as brilliant a...

Your memory will never leave us but God has you in the mansions up there.

Fern, I came to say hello today as I think of you. It's almost 20 years but I remember you like it was yesterday. Rest in Peace my friend.