Mothers of fallen soldiers should be first - ahead of fathers, spouses, siblings, even children. Nothing compares to losing a child. Nothing compares to a mother’s loss.

Not only should Mansfield Gold Star mother Denise Anderson get her wish to be buried with her son, Army Spc. Corey Shea, in the military cemetery in Bourne; she shouldn’t have to ask.

She shouldn’t have to hope Congress will override her rejection by the vets who run the cemetery, as well as protests by the Veterans Affairs Department and some members of Vietnam Veterans of America.

Any mother should have that wish granted, period, and not just under a “special circumstance,” the means by which Anderson’s request is now working its way through Congress.

That circumstance? Corey Shea, just 21 when killed by an Iraqi soldier a year ago Thursday, did not have a chance to marry and father a child.

So, said Denise Anderson this weekend, “I’m not putting anybody out of place. I’m not displacing any spouse, or taking up any veteran’s space. I’m not costing anybody any money.”

A mother who’s sacrificed her child to his country should not have to justify herself, but she does. “It’s not like I’m asking for much.”

There is something very wrong about a mother having to beg for what should be her right.

Widows and widowers? They remarry. Children who’ve lost parents, as horrible as it is? Their lives and hopes move forward. A mother whose child is killed? There is no replacement child, no moving beyond.

Yet mothers are considered second-class grievers, not only in the military but in much of the civilian world’s death rituals. How odd is that?

Denise Anderson’s Mansfield home is filled with pictures of her eldest child, a hulking Corey, nearly 6-feet, 3-inches tall, a size 14 shoe. “He was a terrible ice hockey skater,” Denise Anderson says. “But he was so big they made him a goalie and he took up the whole net. He loved it. He was like that. He would try anything.”

And so he left home, joined the army, and loved that, too. “He came home wrapped up like a mummy,” Denise Anderson said. “We had to have a closed casket. I couldn’t even see him. It was so hard . . . I just don’t want him alone for eternity.”