Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, of Easton, Pa., assigned to the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, died when another soldier threw a grenade into a tent during an attack at Camp Pennsylvania in the dawning days of the 2003 invasion.

Terri has carried the sadness of her husband's death like a proud keepsake since.

"I have survived something that I would have thought to be unsurvivable," she said.

Ironically, she said, there is victory in that sense of achievement as she looks back on the years when all seemed lost. Somehow a new life emerged from the painful void.

Along with other wives at Fort Campbell who lost soldiers in Iraq, she has made herself available to the war's newest widows.

She has walked and stumbled down the paths they are now struggling to travel.

Seifert said early widows in the war had no peers. It was a time when each death was unexpected, government death notifications were uncommon and war widows on post were rare.

"It's an isolating experience," she said. But there is comfort for new widows in people like her, widows who have survived and moved on to build new lives.

She still misses her husband and wishes he were "somewhere out there." She wishes she could have someone to touch.

But there is promise even in tragic death, she said.

"There was much more to Chris' life than his death," she said. "Chris died a hero, but more importantly, he lived as a hero."