One cold winter morning in 2008, 8-year-old Isaiah Wilkins decided to try on his mother’s National Guard uniform, something he always wanted to do. She was away at training in Texas, but she kept an extra uniform at home in Temple, Georgia.
Young Isaiah climbed up to the attic of his parents’ single-story house and spotted the blue 30-gallon bin where his mother stored her military clothes. He unclicked the clips on the sides, lifted the lid, and rummaged through the neatly organized items. After carefully shuffling through a few patches and her combat boots, he spotted her uniform.
He unfolded the garment and draped it against his own body to see if it fit. He turned it around and moved his fingers across the digital camouflage pattern, feeling the stitched text…