It will be a sad homecoming for Brandi Fritsche, whose husband, Staff Sgt. William “Ryan” Fritsche, was killed in action on July 27, 2007, in Afghanistan.
    She’s returning to her native  Edgemere to sign copies of a book about her husband called Why Ryan? at the Shallow Creek Bookstore and Café on Saturday.
    The book was penned by Ryan’s mother, Volitta Fritsche, who will not be attending the signing. “She has written a wonderful book,” said Brandi Fritsche, who lives with her mother-in-law in Indiana, her husband’s home state, and is a 2001 Sparrows Point High School graduate. 
   

 It was Volitta Fritsche’s   decision not to come.
    “[Brandi] was coming home for Thanksgiving,” Volitta  Fritsche said during a phone interview Monday. “We thought it would be appropriate.”
    The 300-page book, which she started just after her son’s death, helped her cope with the tragedy.    
    “It was hard putting it together,” she said. “We had just lost Ryan’s father, my husband, a few months before Ryan was killed. People told me to put it down and come back to it,  but everything I wrote was true and I had to relive it. I didn’t want to go back and face it again a year or [so] later.”    
    Both mother and daughter-in-law agree that the book is a way for people to meet a man who fought and died for his country.
    “It’s a way for those who didn’t know Ryan to get to know him,” Brandi said. “And those who knew him to remember him.”
    Before being deployed to Afghanistan in June 2007,  Ryan Fritsche served at Fort Myers, Va., with the U.S. Army’s elite “Old Guard” unit.
    The Old Guard is an infantry unit responsible for burying and honoring the military dead at Arlington National Cemetery, which includes the Tomb of the Unknown.
    The unit was famously  featured in the Vietnam-era novel Gardens of Stone, as the cemetery is sometimes called.
    “When he was in [basic training] in Fort Benning [Ga.], he was approached by a recruiter from the Old Guard,” his mother said. “We were wary at first, but when we found out what it was, it was fine. Ryan had told us that they don’t deploy overseas because of their mission here.”
    But that was not to be, according to Volitta Fritsche.
    “Because of the troops being spread thin, he was sent first to Africa, then  Afghanistan,” she said. “But he he didn’t go to Afghanistan right away because his father was dying of cancer and they let [Ryan] be with him for his last 48 hours.”
    Fritsche’s father, William, died on May 16, 2007.
    While stationed at Arlington, Fritsche met Brandi, then a senior at George Mason University.
    “He was amazing,” Brandi Fritsche said. “He had a good head on his shoulders and goals in life.”
    The two were married on Sept. 16, 2006.
    “He was a fighter,” Brandi Fritsche  said. “He almost died when he was born, and he’d been fighting ever since.”
    Brandi allowed Volitta Fritsche to include personal journal entries and letters between her and her husband to be included in the book.
    “It includes every entry up until the end of his life.” Brandi said. “The last journal entry is July 26.”
    One day later, 23-year-old Ryan Fritsche was on patrol with his platoon from the the 173rd Airborne Division when they were attacked in Afghanistan.
    “They told me he died providing cover fire for his men,” Brandi Fritsche said, choking up. “He died a hero.”
    Ryan Fritsche’s body was returned to Indiana, where it was laid to rest next to his father, and Brandi Fritsche decided to stay with her mother-in-law.
    “We all needed to be close,” she said. “We are family. All of us.”
    Ryan Fritsche received a Bronze Star, the Army’s fourth-highest honor, and the Purple Heart and had an outpost in Afghanistan named in his honor.
    All proceeds from the book sales will  benefit the Staff Sgt.William Ryan Fritsche Memorial Scholarship Fund.

•   Signings of Why Ryan? will take place at Shallow Creek Bookstore and Café in Edgemere on Saturday, Nov. 28, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. For more information, call the bookstore, 410-477-2665.