Specialist Lackey carries with him the remains of his father in a small urn around his neck.
"I wasn't really close to my dad," he said. "It was maybe the last year before I joined the Army that I was really starting to get close to him. I was away at training when he died. I wasn't really a part of it. It just means something to me that he is around now because I finally got close to him... I don't know I guess it's almost me trying to show him what I am now, what I've become. He only got to live through my training in the Army. He never actually got to see me become an EOD tech which is the biggest thing in my life right now. I think that's really the only thing I try to carry with me at all times."
He also brought with him pictures of his wife and son, as well as an iPod and computer.
This series of interviews looks into soldiers' personal experiences of serving in Afghanistan through what they carry physically and emotionally throughout the experience. The series offers a larger look at what America, as a nation, will have from its longest-running war.
This series is inspired by Tim O’Brien’s Pulitzer-nominated book, The Things They Carried.