Blessed and Honored to Travel with Another Woman of God 7-20-25

On Monday, July 14^th, I was blessed to travel with a sister/minister friend to Arneytown, New Jersey to a military memorial service. This was my first time in that area. The burial ground was massive.

I was introduced to this friend by one of my nieces about three years ago, but it wasn’t until recent months that the Lord united us in friendship and road partners. We also traveled to Atlantic City together two days later.

This sister/minister is a “Gold Star Mother” – her son SPC Anthony Joseph Dixon’s remains are buried in the same cemetery where the memorial was, therefore, I was able to go to his gravesite with her. Anthony was killed in Salah ad Din, Iraq, August 1, 2004 (aged 20).

Information from the internet – America’s Gold Star Family (honor, hope, healing). The Gold Star allowed members of the community to know the price that the family had paid for the cause of freedom. Hence the term “Gold Star Family came from that.”  Individual military family members who lost a loved one also started to be referred to as “Gold Star Wives,” “Gold Star Mothers,” etc.

A few years later, in 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt built upon this growing movement to honor the mothers of deceased service members and designated the last Sunday of September as National Gold Star Mother’s Day. In 2011, President Barack Obama amended “Gold Star Mother’s Day” to include families and designated it as "Gold Star Mother’s and Family Day’ which is celebrated on the last Sunday in September.

Every year in Lindenwold, at the park a memorial service is presented honoring Anthony. Also, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, the entrance to Lindenwold Memorial Park is named “SPC. A. J. Dixon Way” in honor of Specialist Anthony J. Dixon.

When I drive into Camden close to Lourdes Hospital a flag hangs with Anthony’s picture on it, and the flag is seen hanging in Lindenwold and other areas at a different time of the year.

If you put  Anthony J. Dixon in the search bar on the internet, tons of information is pertaining to a young man whose short lived life was immensely impacted by many people.

I am so blessed and grateful that the Lord connected me with this  “Gold Star Mother” Jackie Dixon.

I just had to say this: Although both of us are Pentecostals, our doctrinal beliefs are somewhat different. However, that has nothing to do with our relationship; as daughters of the Most-High God and ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, LOVE takes care of it all.

A Word of Caution- Since nothing can separate us from the love of God , we should never allow our differences cause a wedge between us; that is a mark of immaturity!

His handmaiden, Betty A. Burnett ~ burnettministries.org