Gold stars replace blue ones. It didn't take long for Mrs. Barnes to learn that. Everywhere she went there was at least one blue star hanging in a window, but one by one stars began turning to gold. It was the last thing she hoped would happen when Bucky was shipped overseas to fight in the European Theatre. Every day as she left the house she glanced at the blue star.
Two weeks after Bucky had left the star three houses down turned golden. A month after that Mrs. Lloyd received news that her youngest had been killed.
Early February of 1945, Mrs. Barnes' world seemed to crumble. Bucky was reported KIA. The articles in the papers seemed to only make it worse. She stopped reading them. She started again a few weeks later, only to find that Steve had died also.
September second was a joyful day. The war was over, families would be reunited, and no one else would die, but Mrs. Barnes couldn't bring herself to smile. Her son would never come home, just like so many others. The world remembered him as a hero, but she would always remember him as the little boy that got into a fight the first day of first grade for a boy he didn't even know.
Yes, James Buchanan Barnes had been a hero long before he was a soldier. But, as is commonly the way, people would never see that. They would only see the star.