<bgsound src="http://aaron-gautier.webs.com/Aaron_Angel_final.mp3" loop="infinite"> This website is maintained by assistance from webs.com



This website is a memorial to the life of U.S. Army Cpl. Aaron D. Gautier 19, of Hampton, Virginia.

Aaron was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Washington and gave the ultimate sacrifice while protecting our freedom on May 17, 2007 in Baghdad of wounds sustained when his mounted patrol came in contact with enemy forces using small-arms fire and an improvised explosive device.






There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it...


And you thought Jean-Claude Van Damme looked cool in "Universal Soldier"...








Love – Forgetting what little you might receive and REMEMBERING when another gives all….

Aaron’s slide at the National Weekend of Remembrance – Washington, DC – July 2010. This picture is a blurry, but I think it’s the clarity of where it was displayed that should be the focus (pun intended).








Aaron enlisted in the Army several months shy of his 18th birthday. He was shipped off to Iraq with the Washington-based 2nd Infantry Division.

At 19 years old, he had learned what many of us do not learn in an entire lifetime: How to live honorably and with courage...

The Patriot Guard Riders at Aaron's funeral - May, 2007








We miss the talks we used to have, We miss the voice we used to hear...
We miss hearing your crazy but cool stories, and above all these...
We just miss you!









"It requires more courage to dare to do right, than to fear to do wrong..."
- Abraham Lincoln









There is NOTHING in Heaven or on Earth as powerful as a Mom's love..

Aaron's mom, Tina, on Aaron's 22nd birthday - Jan 17th, 2010








There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life... The highs, lows, and in-between...
- Van Morrison










All men are created equal, then a very select few become heroes...
- Unknown










"These kids join to fight for The United States of America and all the patriotic terms... But they die for their friends next to them..." - John Phelps, Gold-Star father


The memorial in Iraq for Aaron and Pfc. Jonathan V. Hamm, who died the same day, also in Bahgdad








It's the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance,
It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance...



It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live...











Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring
Becomes the Rose...









Aaron loved roller-coasters and the New York Yankees...









"Aaron was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, WA - But his true home was in Hampton Roads..." - Aaron's Gold Star mom, Tina

The term "Hampton Roads" is a centuries-old designation that originated when the region was a struggling English outpost nearly four hundred years ago. The name is believed to have originated from the combination of two separate words.

The word "Hampton" honors one of the founders of the Virginia Company of London and a great supporter of the colonization of Virginia, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. In the easternmost part of the new colony, downstream from Jamestown, the early administrative center was known as Elizabeth Cittie [sic], named for Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of King James I, and formally designated by the Virginia Company in 1619. (The Elizabeth River was also named for the princess).

The town at the center of Elizabeth Cittie became known as simply "Hampton", and a nearby waterway was designated Hampton Creek (also known as Hampton River). The town (and later city) of Hampton was the county seat of Elizabeth City County for over 300 years, until they were politically consolidated into the current large independent city known as Hampton, Virginia in 1952. The City of Hampton thus became one of the large Seven Cities of Hampton Roads, of which four others also grew to the larger sizes by consolidating with neighboring jurisdictions such as counties and towns in the mid-twentieth century...










The love that once was born can not die. For it has become part of us, of our life.
Woven into the very texture of our being...

Aaron - 6 months old








Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal...

The Honor and Remember flag pole, part of the Aaron Gautier Memorial currently being constructed at Aaron's family's home. Check back with us as more pictures are posted...








If 50 years from now you are a million miles away, and need the light of a special one to brighten up your day....

Just close your eyes and feel your heart and honestly believe... There's a piece of me inside your heart, and that piece will never leave...
- Anonymous

Aaron and his sister, Alexis








A baby boy is a blank check made payable to the human race...
- Barbara Christine Seifert








I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of them... but becoming them...








All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth...

Aaron and SSG Coady (his Drill Sergeant) on graduation day - Fort Benning, GA








Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives....

Transcript from the Nancy Grace show - 6/23/09








"Youth is, after all, just a moment, but it is the moment, the spark, that you always carry in your heart..."
- Raisa M. Gorbachev

Aaron in 1997








"It takes a long time to become young..."
- Pablo Picasso

Aaron on his 36 hour weekend pass during Basic Training - Fort Benning, GA








The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York.

The original idea for the Purple Heart (the Badge of Military Merit) is the oldest symbol and award that is still given to members of the U.S. military, surpassed in history only by the long obsolete Fidelity Medallion.









"Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee... calls back the lovely April of her prime..."
- William Shakespeare

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her children..."
- Sophia Loren








"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed forever..."
- I Corinthians 15:52








What the eye does not admire the heart does not desire...









"Mama, Mama" is a universal cry of the dying in battle. Men maimed and broken scream for their mothers, who mercifully can't hear them. Posthumous medals for valor muffle the child and honor the warrior, but for a Gold Star Mother, ribbons and ceremony are as short-lived as the cherished remains being buried.

Without being a statistic, she, too, is a casualty of war. Heard in her strangled weeping are guttural pleas to God to ease the pain of losing a child. For this heartbroken woman, a coffin, even one draped in the American flag and carried by white-gloved Marines, is the grim totality of her forced enlistment into a war that breeched the refuge of home.

The bomb in this woman's living room is the conspicuous absence of her baby. Yes, baby, because no matter how old or how long deceased, the person for whom Taps are played only sleeps in his mother's heart. Naptime is eternity.

Mother's Day becomes a sad reminder and an accolade for her supreme contribution to patriotism. Or maybe it's a time to be angry and resentful — why my son or daughter? Pride crumples in a darkened room filled with pictures of a young man or woman whose potential bled out onto a foreign soil.

This imagined scenario is a relentless assault on memories of all the boo-boos she kissed and Superman Band-Aids plastered on scraped knees and dinged elbows. If only Mama could have been there to fix things, to make them better, to chase the monster away, to kiss away hurts one more time, then, maybe she, too, can stop crying.

Questions and accusations stifle remorse, but tears, like water, ever the enemy of rock, wear down resistance. Solace wrestles with acceptance, but grief takes on a presence of its own. Guided by ghosts, it is either torment or release from them.

When burying a child, remembrance is love and guilt is debilitating; however, my quantifying and simplifying a mother's loss and angst seems as unsentimental as some pot-bellied politician pontificating on Memorial Day.

How can anyone suppose a wound so deep that it bleeds concurrently with every thought of the initial one? Such trauma is personal, so much so, empathy even seems contrived.

In the middle of the night, this woman still awakens to the imagined cries of her baby, only to clutch a pillow instead. Holidays are a poignant reminder of her diminished family; her unwitting contribution to a distant conflict that ignored every mother's boundaries and snatched innocence as abruptly as the life she mourns. Her naiveté is six-feet under as well. The flag so gloriously waving in front of her home casts a shadow.

This Mother's Day, there are women embracing memories rather than their children. These mothers fully understand the costs of war and wonder if the old generals and politicians who enact them ever walk in a military cemetery and sob aloud? Do their sons and daughters wear our country's uniform and see active duty?

Do beribboned chests ever exhale and tremble at the sight of an old woman kneeling at Arlington? Her fingers lovingly touching a carved name as if it were warm and whispering back to her.

Maybe it is; maybe that's why her face is pressed against the stone so she can once again hear, "Mama, Mama."

- A Gold Star Mom from New Braunfels, Texas

Aaron and his mother, Tina - 1997
Tina's trust and faith made this tribute site possible








Honor isn't about making the right choices. It's about dealing with the consequences...









Another world, some other time
You lay your sanity on the line
Familiar faces, familiar sights
Reach back, remember with all your might...

And then you sense a change
Nothing feels the same
All your dreams are strange
Love comes walking in...

- Van Halen, 1986

Lindsey and Aaron







"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not..."
- Mark Twain




"Christmas is a time when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ..."
- Bart Simpson (yeah, that one - webmaster)








Children learn to smile from their parents...

Becoming a father is easy enough, but being one can be very rough...

Aaron and his father, Dan...








"Let our Fathers and Grandfathers be valued for their goodness, ourselves for our own..."
- Benjamin Franklin

Aaron and his Grandpa, March 2007








The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world sees us and how we can see ourselves successfully acknowledged by that world...

Aaron, a picture he took of himself...








You know I'm a dreamer, but my heart's of gold
I had to run away high, so I wouldn't come home low

Just when things went right, doesn't mean they were always wrong
Just take this song and you'll never be left all alone

Take me to your heart, feel me in your bones
Just one more night, and I'm comin' off this long & winding road

I'm on my way...
Just set me free...
Home Sweet Home

- Motley Crue - 1985








"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem..."
- David Carradine








Infantry are soldiers who are primarily trained for the role of fighting on foot. As the oldest of the Combat Arms they are the backbone of most armies. A soldier in the infantry is known as an infantryman...

Infantry units have more physically demanding training than other inits within the military, and place a greater emphasis on fitness, physical strength and aggression...


11 Bravo is the U.S. Army MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) for Infantry








He's got eyes of the bluest skies, as if they thought of rain,
I hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain...
His hair reminds me of a warm safe place where as a child I'd hide,
And pray for the thunder and the rain, to quietly pass me by...
- From the song "Sweet Child of Mine" (Sheryl Crow's version)

Little Boy Blue...








"Discipline is the soul of an Army. It makes small numbers formidable, procures success to the weak, and esteem to all..." - George Washington

59... 60... 61... 62...








Symbolism of the 2nd Infantry Division Patch:

The star has played an important part in our history from the days of the Colonies to the present time.
The Native signifies the first and original American.
These devices were originally established by the division to use as vehicle markings and to identify the vehicles as all American.








"I believe in the brotherhood of all men..."
- Malcolm X

Aaron (on the right) during a night mission...








Individual character involves embracing, honoring, and remembering certain core ethical values; Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Sacrifice...





"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word:
Freedom; Courage; Sacrifice; Honor..."
- Winston Churchill

Aaron's family being presented with his "Honor and Remember" flag from George Lutz








"In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony..."
- E. Burrows

Top left, Donald Houchins (Aaron's stepfather), Tina Houchins (Aaron's mom), Aaron, Dan Gautier (Aaron's dad) Tricia (Aaron's sister), Pat LeNorman (Nana), and Sara Vollmerhausen at boot camp graduation, June 2006








"The only quick way of ending a war is to lose it..."
- George Orwell

"Only the fallen have seen the end of war..."
- Plato, taken from the introduction of the motion picture "Black Hawk Down"

One of the last pictures taken of Aaron - Iraq, May 2007








"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for (and show to) others and the world remains and is immortal..."
- Albert Pine

Aaron at the Washington (state) Hall of Fame








"Sisters are with their brother from the dawn of their personal stories to the inevitable dusk..."
- Susan Merrell

Aaron and his sister, Tricia - 2006








Cute is when a person's personality shines through their looks. Like in the way they walk, talk, or act... Every time you see them you just want to run up and hug them....

"Cute as a button..." - The title that Tina Houchins, Aaron's mom, chose for this picture when she saved it








A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road...

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it...

Aaron, at his Aunt Val's... a random text (pix) message sent to his mom, Tina, at 1:00am








A sister is someone who loves you from the heart,
No matter how much you argue you cannot be drawn apart.
She is a joy that cannot be taken away,
Once she enters your life, she is there to stay...

When she is by your side, the world is filled with life,
When she is not around, your days are full of strife.
A sister is a blessing, who fills your heart with love,
She flies with you in life with the beauty of a dove...

- Shiv Sharma

Aaron and his sisters, Tricia and Alexis - 2004








"Maternal love, like an orange tree, buds and blossoms and bears at once. When a woman puts her finger for the first time into the tiny hand of her baby and feels that helpless clutch which tightens her very heartstrings, she is born again with her newborn child...."
- Kate Douglas Wiggin

Aaron - 6 months old








May you never forget what is worth remembering...
- Irish blessing





"I count myself in nothing else so happy, as in a soul remembering my good friends..."
- William Shakespeare





"There is no worse sorrow than remembering happiness in the day of sorrow..."
- Al De Musset


The above 3 pictures were taken on January 17th, 2009... Aaron's 21st birthday








Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time...

Bootcamp graduation, June 2006








"Remember upon the conduct of a brave few, depends the fate of us all..."
- Alexander The Great (356 BC - 323 BC)








A sister is one who reaches for your hand and touches your heart...

Aaron and his sister, Tricia








"Home is not where you live, but where they understand you..."
- Christian Morganstern

Home from Fort Benning, GA - June 2006








"These kids join to fight for The United States of America and all the patriotic terms... But they die for their friends next to them..."
- John Phelps, Gold-Star father


Aaron, from Hampton, VA and Nick Hartge, from Rome City IN, never met one another... If you believe both of them gaves their lives for all of us, then they also gave their lives for each other...








So live that your memories will be part of your happiness...









Since the Revolutionary War, soldiers have dedicated their lives to protecting and maintaining the pride in the U.S., and they are very important to us. We must remember that, although many soldiers did not make it through war, they are veterans, nonetheless. They deserve to be honored as much as anyone who survived.

There is not enough stone in the world to commemorate their sacrifices; not enough emotion in the world to feel what they felt, as many of them saw their human brethren give the ultimate sacrifice - their lives....

- taken from "Soldiers - Past and Present" an essay by Christopher Vincent - Milltown, NJ










Thank you for visiting the Aaron Daniel Gautier Website

God Bless You

Gold Star Family Support Group
Hearts of America, Care Packages for Military
Moms of Military - Prayer and Support Group
The Fallen Heroes Memorial website
The Military Times "Faces of Valor" website (List of US Casualties)
Patriot Guard Riders website
CNN iwatch - Support to Troops
Operation Iraqi Freedom
War in Afghanistan 2001 - Present