As Independence Day was celebrated across the nation, a Dallas soldier's mother received a phone call every parent dreads.
Her 23-year-old son had been killed.
In the days since Army Spc. Kendrick Grayer's death, his mother Kenisha has been left grieving an unspeakable loss with more questions than answers.
"He was a good son. A son anybody would want to have," she said. "He make you laugh all the time."
Grayer spent Sunday afternoon in her Pleasant Grove home watching a musical tribute to her son.
Images flashed on the screen of a young man enjoying high school, enlisting in the Army and embracing his baby girl.
They are images of a young man's life flashing by, and in an instant cut short.
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'I miss my baby," Grayer said wiping away a tear. "I find myself calling his number thinking he is going to pick up."
Grayer has lost her soldier son.
Not in the battlefields of war, but rather gunned down at home on a Tennessee basketball court, according to the Leaf-Chronicle.
Grayer was stationed at nearby Fort Campbell along the Tennessee-Kentucky border after graduating Samuel High School in Pleasant Grove.
"He said: I want to protect my country," she recalls. "I want to go do something. I want to go be all I can be."
And Grayer did.
He earned various accolades while in the Army, according to local reports.
It makes his senseless killing on the 4th of July unbearable for his mother.
"I could see if he died of natural causes or being deployed or something but that: that was a heinous crime," said Grayer.
Police in Clarksville, Tennessee, arrested Adriam Hodge, 22, on July 5, according to the department's Facebook page.
Hodge has been charged with criminal homicide.
Police say Grayer and a different man were involved in a physical altercation when Hodge pulled out a gun and shot Grayer multiple times in the chest and leg.
A motive is unclear at this point.
"It's not fair for somebody just take his life like that," said Grayer.
Grayer's flag-draped casket was flown back home to Dallas in the days following the shooting.
"When I went out to DFW when I just saw him just come off I couldn't even breathe," she said. "I wasn't expecting to see my son come home like that."
The grieving mother is left clutching a teddy bear dressed as a soldier.
A gift, she says, from her son when he was leaving home.
"This makes me feel like I'm closer. Like he's right here," she said.
Grayer says her son had just made sergeant and was ready to be transferred to Georgia.
Grayer remembers the last FaceTime phone conversation with her son on July 3.
"He said, 'I love you, momma.' The last words," she said.
Grayer said she is ready to defend her son, as he defended his country.
"I want justice," she said.
Representatives from Fort Hood have been at the Grayer family's side since their tragic loss.
A military funeral is set for Friday, July 19, at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Dallas.
Grayer will be laid to rest at DFW National Cemetery in Dallas.
