Wes Moore wrote of grieving a soldier before he died. His widow never knew.

For nearly 21 years, Alicia Meister has heard from people who remember her late husband.

Soldiers who served alongside him. Friends who never forgot him. Even strangers who wanted her to know what kind of man Army 1st Sgt. Tobias “Toby” Meister was before he was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, three days after Christmas in 2005.

Some still reach out. Others have become part of her family’s life, helping keep Toby’s memory alive for the son who was barely a year old when his father died.

But one name never came up: Wes Moore.

“I’ve never heard from him,” said Alicia, who still calls Tulsa, Oklahoma, home.

The Maryland governor wrote about Toby in his 2015 memoir, “The Work: Searching for a Life That Matters,” describing the fallen soldier as a friend whose death brought him to tears at his grandfather’s funeral.

There was a problem with Moore’s account.

Toby was still alive.

Moore described grieving his “friend” at his grandfather’s funeral on Dec. 17, 2005.

“Inside that casket, I also saw Toby,” Moore wrote.

He described crying for his grandfather, Toby and other fallen soldiers, and finding a measure of peace.

“As I left the funeral I felt freer than when I’d arrived,” Moore wrote in the book.

But Toby wasn’t dead yet.

The 30-year-old was killed 11 days later, on Dec. 28, 2005, when a roadside bomb struck his Humvee in Afghanistan.

Moore did not learn of Toby’s death the same month that his grandfather died. He didn’t find out about Toby until he returned to Afghanistan in January.

Yet the scene appeared in a book published a decade later, transforming a fallen soldier’s death into part of the future governor’s own account of grief and healing.

And Toby’s widow knew nothing about it.

“I’ve never personally heard from him,” she said Monday. “I don’t know who [Moore] is. I don’t recall my late husband ever talking about him.”

By Friday, days after Spotlight on Maryland reached out to Moore’s office for comment, Alicia said Moore had contacted her.

“It was good,” she said. “He paid his respects and apologized for not reaching out sooner.”

“I do wish, though, that my late husband would be removed from the situation completely. I just don’t like that he has been brought in the middle of it,” she added.

Moore has not responded to Spotlight on Maryland’s questions, including why he didn’t reach out to Toby’s family for 21 years or whether he has asked the publisher to correct his book.

‘I would remember if he reached out to me’

During an hour-long phone call Monday with Spotlight on Maryland, Alicia said she had never heard of Moore, never knew he had written about her husband and never received a condolence call or message from him in the two decades following Toby’s death.

To the best of her knowledge, Moore had never reached out to Toby’s parents or brother, sent any of them a copy of his book or told them he would be writing about the fallen soldier.

She didn’t learn about Moore’s book and the discrepancies in it until Maryland news organizations wrote about it this year.

“I would remember if he reached out to me about a book,” Alicia said.

Moreover, she said Toby’s friends and soldiers who were close to him had never mentioned Moore.

It stands out against an outpouring of condolences, well wishes and check-ins she continues to receive in her Gold Star family.

‘Mourned by many’

After Toby died, she heard from soldiers who had served beside him, people who barely knew her and people who wanted to make sure she understood how much her husband had mattered.

“Many people said, ‘He was the finest soldier I’ve ever served with,’” she said.

Others called him “one of a kind.”

Toby’s reputation extended beyond those close to him, according to retired Army Lt. Col. James A. Patton of Amarillo, Texas.

“I didn’t know him personally but did by reputation,” Patton said. “He had a very solid reputation. He was mourned by many.”

Some knew Toby as the U.S. Army Reserve’s Drill Sergeant of the Year in 2002, and as an athlete with a fifth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a Middleweight Golden Gloves kickboxing champion in 1996.

Alicia remembers the people who have reached out and has kept in touch with them. She and Will, who was a little more than a year old when Toby died, have also met people from Toby’s unit.

“We’ve stayed in contact with the majority of people he was closest with,” she said.

Alicia also heard from former President George W. Bush, who met with the Gold Star family in person, offered his sympathy and listened as they shared stories.

“When we cried, he cried,” Alicia said.

And despite how busy a wartime president’s schedule can be, he found time to sit with the family and tell them he intended to put a collection of Toby’s writings from Afghanistan in his presidential library.

By contrast, Moore gave no heads-up before he published a book with Toby’s name in it.

Alicia told Spotlight multiple times in an hour that she didn’t know Moore, hasn’t heard from him and was surprised to learn he had written about her late husband.

“I don’t know how to feel about it because I don’t know what his intentions were,” Alicia said of Moore’s 2015 book. “I’m not sure why he picked Toby to feature. Other soldiers were killed where my husband was, too.”

But Alicia is a Christian who offers grace. She said she is faith-filled, which has helped her navigate life after irreplaceable loss. And by both life experience and her trade as a therapist with a master’s degree in counseling, she knows trauma all too well.

“I don’t know why (Moore) got the dates wrong,” she said. “I don’t know what his story is or his trauma is. I study trauma. Trauma can make you get dates wrong. I don’t make judgment calls on what I don’t understand. I don’t know anything about him. War can mess people up.”

Moore has previously blamed the book’s inaccuracies on poor editing and the effects of stress, grief and time on his memory. He told The Baltimore Banner he would have written certain passages more carefully had he anticipated the scrutiny his military record would receive.

The governor’s office did not respond to Spotlight’s questions in June or this week.

‘I still miss him’

For Alicia, the dates have never been mixed up or forgotten. They are forever intertwined with times throughout the year.

Memorial Day, the last day she and Will saw him in 2005, and the day she left believing she would see him again.

Every Veterans Day, when he’s the first veteran on her mind.

Nov. 27, Toby’s birthday, which always falls around Thanksgiving Day. It’s a day when she and Will still honor him by doing something to celebrate him.

Christmas Day, the last time she heard his voice.

Dec. 28, three days after Christmas and the day Toby died.

“I still miss him,” Alicia said. “It’s still hard.”

‘Toby Meister did not know Wes Moore’

Alicia said the best people to share reliable stories about Toby are those who knew him and loved him.

“I would go with whoever served with my late husband,” she said.

That includes retired Army Lt. Col. Patrick “Pete” Munster of Colorado.

“Toby Meister was one of the best young leaders I’ve ever met,” Munster said. “He had the universal respect of every military member he encountered.”

He said he was with Toby during his final moments.

“The roadside bomb that hit his vehicle was powerful and might have killed him instantly, but I ran to his vehicle and held Toby, and if he was still alive, I held him as he died,” Munster said.

Munster is still close to Alicia and Will, looking out for them through the years and celebrating Will’s milestones. Their families have vacationed together.

The retired lieutenant colonel disputes Moore’s account in the book or that he even knew Toby.

“I don’t have any f—ing idea who Wes Moore is,” Munster said. “If what you read to me is really from a book that this guy wrote, it makes him a f—ing liar.”

Munster also disputed accounts that Moore coordinated tactical operations with Toby, which Moore’s supervisor in Afghanistan, retired Lt. Col. James “Jamie” Gottschling, has also disputed.

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“Why would we coordinate any tactical movements with a brigade headquarters more than 200 miles away and with an information operations officer?” Munster said. “I can tell you that Toby Meister did not know Wes Moore or coordinate any tactical operations with him.”

Moore did not respond to Spotlight’s questions on June 25 or Friday about how he knew Toby.

Retired Marine Cpl. Gary Wayne Epperson, of Muskogee, Oklahoma, earned a Purple Heart for his wounds in the same battlefield attack that killed Toby.

“I still don’t walk right from the blast,” he said in an interview with Spotlight on Maryland. “It messed me up pretty good.”

Epperson says there isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t think of Toby, whom he said was a great leader.

“During his last moments he was making sure the rest of our guys in the convoy were OK. His last words were ‘good to go,’” he said.

Epperson said he didn’t know Moore and they didn’t interact with anyone from Forward Operating Base Salerno, where Moore was. He said they just sent reports.

“I don’t see how Toby could have known Moore, and it doesn’t make sense that he would have been doing route coordination with him,” Epperson said.

He emphasized that there weren’t routes in Afghanistan. There was one option to get anywhere: a road between Asadabad and Jalalabad.

“You can’t alternate your route, so there’s nothing to coordinate,” Epperson said. “[Moore’s] story is bull—-.”

Epperson expressed anger that Moore would use Toby’s death to boost book sales or to win others over.

“If Toby really meant anything to Moore, he wouldn’t have used him in that way, for political gain,” Epperson said.

Moore did not respond to Spotlight’s questions about why he wrote about Toby, how frequently they interacted or how he would respond to Toby’s friend’s claims.

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‘Honored to have been his wife’

The descriptions from Munster and Epperson about Toby’s leadership are similar to the stories Alicia tells about her late husband.

“We didn’t get to talk a whole lot. They only had satellite phones, and he wanted to make sure his guys got to talk first,” she said.

It was the same way with taking leave. Toby went last. “He made sure his guys got to go home first,” Alicia said.

“I’m very honored to have been his wife,” she said.

In their son, Will, now 22, she has one of Toby’s greatest gifts.

Will has partially followed in his dad’s footsteps, full of intelligence and goodness. Toby went to the University of Texas in Austin, but Will goes to the rival Texas A&M in College Station.

“He’s a very, very smart kid. He’s a lot like his dad,” Alicia said. “He looks just like him, acts just like him.”

“It’s a huge blessing to have his mini me,” she added.

Finding the blessings is how she’s made it through the last two decades, though she mentions she still has hard days like anniversaries and the recently passed Veterans Day.

“The wound gets reopened,” Alicia said.

She said she’s tried to focus on growth and healing, a faith-filled life, and believing everything happens as it should, even in evil.

“There’s beauty from the ashes,” she said.

As Alicia continues to grieve the loss of her husband, Moore was again given an opportunity to comment for this story. He and his office have not responded to 26 questions since June, including whether he believes he owes Toby’s family a correction or an apology.

Candy Woodall is the executive producer and managing editor of Spotlight on Maryland, a joint venture by FOX45News, The Baltimore Sun and WJLA in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at clwoodall@sbgtv.com.

Drew Sullins can be reached at dpsullins@sbgtv.com. Send story tips to spotlightonmaryland@sbgtv.com or call our hotline at (410) 467-4670. Follow us on X at @SpotlightMDNews, and on Instagram and Facebook at Spotlight on Maryland.