EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --
Beneath the morning’s golden light,
Eight Americans vanished from our sight.
No one who watched them climb away
Imagined this would be the day.
People will say that eight were lost,
Those who served know what it cost.
For every life that answers duty
Leaves a thousand threads behind.
A spouse still listens for a door,
A child still wants a hug once more.
A parent lingers over photographs,
A friend recalls their familiar laugh.
Like ripples moving from the shore,
Their lives still touch us evermore.
The circles widen year by year,
In every heart that held them dear.
Yet let us not be known by grief,
Or let their story end too brief.
Remember how they lived each day,
And gave far more than words can say.
Like every family, every friend,
They thought there’d be more time to spend.
They climbed into the morning sky,
Prepared to serve, prepared to fly.
And when the dawn returns once more,
To paint the desert as before,
Remember not the day they fell—
Remember how they lived so well.
For somewhere still an empty chair
Reminds a family they were there.
And somewhere hearts still speak their names,
And honor all that they became.
Years from now, when tears grow fewer,
And memories soften with the years,
The good they gave will still move forward
In lives they touched while they were here.
The loss of eight is never eight—
It echoes far beyond that gate.
It lives within the lives they changed,
And all who loved them still remain.
People will say that eight were lost.
Those who have served know something more:
The loss of eight is never eight.
(Retired Maj. John Creighton served for nearly thirty years and retired as an aircraft maintenance officer in 2012.)