For his senior prom, Nick Mason didn't rent a tuxedo. He made one--out of duct tape.
On a coffee table in his parents' King George County home sits a picture of that glorious moment. His date wears a full-length pale blue dress with white gloves that stretch from her fingertips to just above her elbows.
Beside her is a clean-cut young man attired in duct-tape-covered slacks and matching jacket and cap. Beneath his chin--where one would wear a bow tie--dangles a blue Chevrolet emblem.
Smiling at the recollection, Christine Mason says her son's date knew what she was getting when she accepted his invitation to the prom.
Character is often cited as a desirable trait for a soldier. Nick Mason had that brand of character, but his family also made it clear this week that the 2002 honors graduate of King George High School also was quite a character.
"Entertaining" was one word his mother used to describe the young man who picked up his sister from her first school dance with a dead deer affixed to the front bumper of his Jeep.
It was his first deer and he was proud of it, his father, Vic Mason, said. It didn't matter that he hadn't felled it with a rifle but with the grill of his vehicle.
Carley Mason, now 17, said he was upset she didn't immediately notice it; she was upset that he was an hour late.
Christine and Vic Mason and the younger of their two children, Carley, enjoy talking about Nick's antics.
Those were the good times.
They've also found comfort and purpose in planning and preparing a memorial to him on their 20-plus-acre property. The Masons considered Arlington National Cemetery, but instead chose to establish a family cemetery after 20-year-old Nicholas Conan Mason was killed four days before Christmas inside the mess tent of a U.S. base near Mosul, Iraq.
Despite his penchant for playfulness, Nick Mason also had a serious side.
He loved serving as a volunteer firefighter and, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he asked his parents to sign the paperwork so he could join the National Guard--just one month after turning 17.
Nick wanted to serve his nation and planned to pursue an Army career after college, then follow in his father's and grandfather's footsteps and become King George's circuit court clerk.
He was a member of the 229th Engineer Battalion out of Fredericksburg but was attached to the 276th for deployment to Iraq.
Today, his mother wears a bracelet engraved with her son's rank and battalion and the date and location where her son and Stafford resident David Ruhren were killed. Both were posthumously promoted to sergeant.
She also wears her son's high school class ring on one forefinger and his Army ring on the other.
The black granite headstone marking Nick Mason's grave is etched on one side with the words from Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God."
On the other side is a picture of the young man in boots, camouflage pants and T-shirt, his left arm outstretched and right arm clutching his weapon, smiling as he stands on the front bumper of a 5-ton truck somewhere in the desert of Iraq.
With the American flag waving as a backdrop, the inscription on the stone reads: "A life well lived, a job well done, our hero."
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