Website amasses mementos for grieving military families

Debra Booth had no pictures from the five weeks that her son, Marine Lt. Joshua Booth, served in Iraq before he was killed in action in 2006.

But five years later, on rollofhonor.togetherweserved.com, she saw photos of him taken by other Marines who had served with him in that country. "To see him in his element, to see him in his final days, was amazing," said Booth, of Sturbridge, Mass.

"My hope is on this site that this will keep happening over and over again, that we will keep connecting," she said days after she'd traveled to Bedford, Va., to be at his grave last Sunday, what would have been Lt. Booth's 29th birthday. Among other things, she hopes it helps fill out a "clearer story" of Josh Booth for the two children he left behind but never got to know.

With Memorial Day approaching, the founder of TogetherWeServed.com, a 9-year-old Internet site that links military veterans, is soliciting more exchanges like this. Brian Foster's original site is exclusive to current military members and veterans. Now, he has set up a related site for the public to view "remembrance profiles" of 100,000 servicemembers who died serving in wars since World War II. And that site needs help filling in the blanks.

Each "Roll of Honor" profile can be searched by name and contains vitals ? service pictures if available, cause of death, medals earned. It also has places for family members to post pictures, poems, letters and other memories of the fallen.

Vets and families of vets, we want you! Tweet us your memories, photos that show how military service has affected you: #uswarstories

"The public at large has all the information on these people, often in shoeboxes in attics, which will eventually get thrown out at some point," said Foster, a Los Angeles resident, whose new site was officially launched Monday, but has been gradually rolling out the profiles of the fallen for about year. The site, he said, is a permanent repository for such information.

Foster, an American citizen born in Scotland, once provided low-cost telephone calls to military members serving overseas. When Skype came along and ended his phone business, he created TogetherWeServed.com as another way for active-duty military and veterans to connect. About 1.2 million have joined, and there are 1.5 million visits each month, often veterans seeking someone they had served with but lost track of.

The new public roll of honor is "a gift to every family who has lost a loved one in service," he said.

"Memories fade, and the service and sacrifice of these service people will go unrecognized if it is not captured," he said.

Booth posted a letter from a Marine captain who had served with her son, extolled his humility and service, and pleaded with his Sturbridge hometown to produce more men like him.

"Every mother hopes you raise your son with certain qualities," she said. The letter tells the world, she said, that her son "was a good man."

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