On Memorial Day, 7-year-old Mason Lee visited Wilmington National Cemetery with his family to place American flags on the graves of fallen soldiers. Mason immediately connected to the grave of one soldier, Sergeant TJ Butler, and he desperately wanted to know more about the American hero.

Mason’s mother Sarah recalled that the boy “had a lot of questions.”

“He wanted to know if he had a son and a family, and wanted to know more about him,” she said. “It was really touching because you could tell he was really soaking it all in. That this was somebody’s son, somebody’s daddy.”

When the family went back to the cemetery on Memorial Day one year later, Mason drew a picture with an American flag and a shield and put it in a plastic bag to leave at the gravesite. He told his parents that he drew the picture because Butler “was a hero.”

“It must have made a huge impact on him to be that young and remember something like that,” Sarah said.

Butler’s mother Leslie was stunned when she found the drawing after she visited her son’s grave. She was moved that the little boy wanted to pay tribute to her son, who was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2012, and she wanted to meet him.

When Leslie finally met with Mason, she gifted him with a Captain America toy!

“TJ’s teachers all his life called him a social butterfly. So I’m thinking he still is a social butterfly,” Leslie said. “For Mason’s age, I thought it was very special that he came down and visited TJ.”

Mason is planning to leave an American flag on Butler’s grave for many years to come.

“As long as Mason is here, he’ll place his flag here I can be happy that I know that Mason’s going to give TJ his flag,” Leslie said.

It’s nice to see that a boy as young as Mason can understand the heroism of this fallen soldier! Find out more about this in the video below, and SHARE this story so your friends and family can see this as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkGlYmycpaw