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Bayleigh Dostie was in kindergarten the year her family received a knock on the door. At 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 30, 2005, a scrolling news ticker reported that a soldier had been killed in Baghdad. Bayleigh’s mother, Stephanie, hadn’t heard from her husband in days and had a foreboding feeling that he was the dead soldier. She refused to leave her bedroom all day; she was afraid that military casualty officers would come to the house. And they did — at 2:30 that afternoon. Stephanie screamed for Bayleigh and her brother, Cameron, not to open the door.

Sgt. First Class Shawn Dostie was killed earlier that day by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

‘I wonder what kind of things that we would be doing and what kind of adventures we would be having if you were here’