Christopher D. Rose

On Sunday, March 18, The Chronicle published a special insert, Profiles of Sacrifice, which listed the names of the 3,211 members of the U.S. Armed Forces killed in Iraq since the war began four years ago. That number is now 3,235. The section contained brief profiles of the thirty-six servicemembers from the Bay Area who lost their lives in Iraq. The text of the profile on Army Spc. Christopher D. Rose is below:

On Christmas, Christopher D. Rose's parents placed a small tree on his grave. On Valentine's Day, they brought him a card.

Every day, they drive from their Daly City home to Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno before Rudy starts his night job as a security guard and Margaret her graveyard shift at Target.

They tell their son that they miss him, that they love him. They pass on messages and cards from family and friends who know the couple religiously visits their son, Army Spc. 4 Christopher D. Rose, 21, who was killed June 29 by a bomb in Baghdad, two years after he had enlisted in the Army.

"If we didn't go to the cemetery every day, I would go crazy," said Margaret. "It's great to tell him hello."

On Feb. 4, what would have been his 22nd birthday, they bought his favorite rum cake and, together with family, sang him happy birthday. Their son, they said, was so kind and ebullient. He told them he joined the Army to keep his family safe.

They savor memories of his two-week visit home in May, and wonder if he sensed his impending death and was saying goodbye. He visited favorite elementary, middle and high school teachers in San Francisco. At one gathering, his mother spotted him watching quietly from a distance as everyone enjoyed a party.

"I'm putting it in my mind -- the memories I want to take with me," he told her.

He had already lived through hell in Iraq. Not long after arriving in November 2005, a roadside bomb exploded near his humvee. His sergeant ordered him to fire on some figures Rose had spotted running away, his father said. When the troops examined the bodies, they discovered children with a remote detonation device. The young soldier never got over it.

His mother has agonized over whether their son suffered before he died. And then her husband Rudy had a dream in which Christopher appeared and explained, "All I heard was an explosion and my legs went numb."

"The message to me is 'I didn't suffer,' said Rudy, who cries every day.