Page 95 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2020- Online Magazine

ARMY
IRAqI FREEdOM

CROSBYTON

happen to friend” to his mother. His brothers looked up to him,
me. I love and, to this day, they say things like, ‘This is what
you.” And Rick would have done.’
indeed, those “When he was little, he used to look in the mirror and
were the last say, ‘Mom, I’m the best thing you’ve ever done.’ I
words she would laugh and ask, ‘What about the other kids?’ He
ever heard would respond, ‘We don’t need to tell them.’”
him speak.
Brenda Robertson has taken life one day at a time
“April’s dad since that tragic day 15 years ago. She has helped with
called and told me to come to Roswell, so I took off her grandchildren and even let Ricky, Sr. move in
work and drove down. I had gone to a convenience with her so she could take care of him during his final
store, and my son Daniel found me there. I could years battling ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). One of her
tell something was grandsons, Ethan, reminds her so much of Ricky, Jr.
wrong. He said, “He talks about his ‘Uncle Kiki’ all the time.” It gives
‘Mom, have you her great joy to hear someone talk about him. “I just
heard the news? Rick don’t want him to be forgotten.”
got killed.’ It was the
hardest day of my
life.” On March 6,
2006, PFC Ricky Salas
had died of injuries
sustained during his
unit’s patrol near
Muhallabiyah, Iraq.
“I have lost a lot of
people in my life, but none of it compares to the pain
of losing my son.”

“My world ended. I had to quit school. I lost my job,
my car, my apartment.” But life goes on, and Brenda
Robertson somehow pulled it together. She is Nana to
21 grandkids and is still working (these days at White
River Lake Marina) to make ends meet. It has been 15
years since she had a premonition in a dream of losing
one of her children, just before Ricky was killed. She
still doesn’t sleep through the night.

But she is happy to talk about her son. “I like it when
people ask about him. He was amazing. Always
happy. Loved fireworks and the 4th of July. He
believed in family. He helped me whenever he could.
He would say, ‘Mom, I owe you.'" Ricky, Jr. had
stepped up to assume the role of “man of the house”
when his dad left, and he became more like “a best

Senior Link 95