The Soldiers' Stories: War's young widows walk own path in valley of grief

Lucas Frantz

TONGANOXIE, Kan. -- Mo's Pizza is beginning to fill with the after-church lunch crowd and Kelly Frantz couldn't be more uncomfortable.

"I don't do this very often," she whispered, ignoring both the cheese slice growing cold in front of her and the people staring in her direction.

"Most of the time I'm outside of Tonganoxie because I want to blend in. And I don't feel like I can do that here."

Frantz, 24, drew attention not because she is a local actress or even a fashion model, although with her wide white smile and flaxen hair she surely could be. Frantz's unwanted celebrity is as unglamorous as it is tragic: She is a war widow.

About 40 percent of the more than 3,000 U.S. troops who have died since Sept.11, 2001, had a wife or husband waiting for them back home. And for those surviving spouses, who are almost all women, the grieving process is their own.

But within this sisterhood that grows with every casualty, there is a subgroup of young widows in their teens and early 20s. Newly single, but not exactly so, these women say they must strike a balance between being the fallen hero's wife and being a young, independent woman--all while mourning under the microscope.

"When you think of a widow you think of an older lady, maybe 60 or 70, not a 23-year-old," said Frantz, whose husband, Spec. Lucas Frantz, was killed in Iraq a year ago this Wednesday.

"Starting my life over again obviously wasn't my choice, but I'm going to go with it," she said. "I'm not going to hide in the corner of my room."

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