Mastic: A father's long season of sorrow

For nearly a half dozen years, Sept. 11 has begun a long season of melancholy that stretches into February for Terry Wilwerth of Mastic.

His son, Spc. Thomas J. Wilwerth, was so troubled by the terror attack that he enlisted in the Army Reserve as soon as he was old enough in 2003, while he was still a junior at William Floyd High School. He signed up with the regular force a year later, Wilwerth said, and deployed just before Christmas, 2005.

"He was still just a boy when the towers came down, and that pushed him to go into the military to protect our country," said Wilwerth. "I think he was like a lot of soldiers who signed up after 9/11. They felt a sense of patriotism, that they wanted to protect their families and their communities."

Spc. Wilwerth was killed Feb. 22, 2006, when a hidden bomb detonated near his Bradley fighting vehicle near Balad, Iraq. He was 21.

"September 11 is a sad day for everyone, but the saddest day for me is February 22, the day two soldiers came knocking on my door," Wilwerth said. "I knew what they were there for."

"From this point, from 9/11, then my son's birthday in October, then Christmas without him and then February, it's just a very hard time, it's a tough time," Wilwerth said.

"We get through somehow," he said. "It's been more than five years now."