Memorial Day is a day to remember those who gave their lives in service to the nation. The fight for many War on Terror veterans didn’t stop when they came home from Iraq or Afghanistan. For some families, the battle was waged silently—and lost—at home.
Cydney Guard was enjoying a well-deserved celebration trip to Hawaii in 2009 after graduating college with her degree in nutrition when she met her soon to be husband, Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas Kau’ilokoikaika Franklin Guard.
The friend who’d invited her out for the trip invited one of her friends she met in college to come hang out with them one night in Waikiki, he and his fellow reserve recon Marines had just returned from a deployment in Iraq.
“We were all in our twenties and having a grand old time,” Cydney told We Are The Mighty. “Us girls were poor college kids so were impressed when they took us out on the town. Nick had invited us to go on a hike the next morning so even after a heavy night of drinking, we all met up. In true Nick fashion he couldn’t just do the hike normally but had to wear his rucksack filled with sandbags to do it.”
She remembers thinking “He’s so hot, I’ve got to climb this just as fast to impress him”.
Cyd and Nick spent the entire week together exploring the island and though she had an amazing time, she admitted she didn’t think she’d ever see him again. But there was a moment that stuck with her.
“We were at the condo and he walked by where I was sitting on a stool and he grazed my leg. I instantly felt the strength of his energy run through me,” she expressed.
They talked every day after she left and he eventually came out to her parents’ house in California to visit her. After that, they committed to making it work long distance. Through her years of nursing school, Nick finished out his reserve time and became a base police officer. When the only nursing job she could get to gain experience was in North Dakota, Nick came with her.
“When we celebrated our first Thanksgiving out there he was so excited to make the turkey and was studying these magazines and recipes. He was so excited about the brine,” Cydney laughed. “He blamed the new stove when it came out black even though he never checked on it. The important part was that l woke up to a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal. He just loved to take care of me.”
After 10 months, Cydney was able to get a job in Yuba City where her parents were from and they both relocated to northern California. Nick got a job at a golf course but he wanted to go back into service, this time to join the Army. In 2015, he received an 18X contract with the goal of joining the Special Forces. After six years together, Nick asked her to marry him.
They married in the church she grew up going to, surrounded by her family and his, who’d come in from Hawaii and Colorado to watch them start their lives together. Cydney lived and worked at a hospital in Charlotte while he completed the Q course at Fort Bragg. Initially his orders were going to be to Okinawa but she was pregnant with their son, Mattix, and didn’t want to go overseas with a baby.
“I think his friend Earl Plumlee pulled some strings to get him orders to JBLM,” she shared.
Assigned to 1st Special Forces Group in Washington, they built a life at Joint Base Lewis-McCord as Nick geared up for a deployment to Afghanistan.
“In 2018 I moved back to California to live with my parents when Mattix was a baby and Nick was overseas so I could work as a travel nurse and have help,” Cydney explained.
When Nick came home from Afghanistan, she thought everything was fine.
“I think that’s where it all started. They’re all so good and pride themselves at compartmentalizing it all. I didn’t realize how dark it was getting,” she shared. “But it didn’t bleed into our marriage. Sure we had some high highs and low lows, but we always chose each other and fought to be together.”
He prided himself on constantly striving to be better. “Recon Marine wasn’t enough… then Special Forces… then Ranger School… then CAG selection.”
Nick’s daughter Leilani was born shortly after he earned his Ranger tab. But as America abruptly pulled out of Afghanistan, Nick began to struggle and express disappointment.
“From the outside looking in, he was so handsome, so strong… It looked like he had it all. But he was holding a lot in,” Cydney explained. “He told me he locked himself in a hotel room and was struggling with his mental health.”
The couple and their friends worked through his struggles quietly, thinking they were in the clear. Cydney was a nurse in the ER so she knew what the process would be for Nick if he went into the hospital saying he was suicidal. A year later, she was visiting her family with their kids in California when she got the call.
“I was like pottery that fell onto the floor and broke into a million pieces,” she remembered.
Nick had taken his family to the airport and was scheduled to go to the National Training Center. But he never made it, even though his bags were packed by the door.
With how often Nick was gone from their lives to serve, it was important to Cydney that her children understood he wasn’t coming back. During the viewing, four-year-old Mattix asked to lay in the casket with his dad and she and Uncle Jon helped him inside to lay with his daddy.
“Leilani has now remembered her father longer than she actually knew him. Even so, she still draws pictures of our family—mom, dad, brother, the four of us together—and I think that’s her way of keeping her daddy alive,” Cydney said. “Every night at dinner, I light a candle so Nick can be with us. They blow out the candle and say, ‘Goodnight, Daddy. I love you. I miss you. I wish you were alive.’”
It took Cydney years to put the pieces together, with the support of family and friends.
“He was the best thing that ever happened to me and I picked him to be the father of my children so it’s very heavy,” she shared. “I wanted him to come to their activities, to take Leilani to daddy daughter dances. I wanted to grow old with him.”
Cydney credits nonprofit organizations that support the fallen with helping her find her way back. After two years, the family relocated back to California and the kids are thriving in a Spanish immersion school and all the activities Nick wanted them to be involved in.
“There’s so much that I wrote for my life with Nick that I am having to rewrite and it’s not fair,” Cydney said. “But still every time I go through a tunnel I hold my breath and make the same wish: peace, love and happiness.”
Sergeant 1st Class Nicholas Kau‘ilokoikaika Franklin Guard devoted his life to service, honorably serving in both the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army during the War on Terror, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today, he rests alongside fellow service members at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, the city he called home. In accordance with the life he loved, portions of his ashes were also spread at Sandy Beach where he spent countless days bodysurfing with friends and throughout the Ka‘au Crater mountains, where he frequently hiked with family.
The Unquiet Professional, a national nonprofit dedicated to honoring Gold Star familiies and veterans, will be honoring Guard on Memorial Day 2026 during its Virtual Memorial Mile. Created in 2018 by Humans on the Homefront to honor our fallen and support The Unquiet Professional, the Virtual Memorial Mile features participants around the world memorializing fallen service members.
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