CHEYENNE, Wyo. – AP
Soldier Ranger Spc. Jonn Edmunds, of Cheyenne, was one of the first two people killed in the war when a Black Hawk helicopter carrying a search and rescue plane crashed in Pakistan on October 19, 2001.
Last month, the Marine Lance Cpl family. Rylee McCollum, of Bondurant outside Jackson, learned that she was one of 13 U.S. soldiers killed in a suicide bombing on August 26 at Kabul airport.
Edmunds and McCollum were both killed in their first mission. On average, about 2,500 U.S. troops have died in the war in Afghanistan, many more seriously injured than two Wyoming men.
As Edmunds died in a stampede after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, McCollum strikes The American people are struggling to make ends meet how good – if any – comes from the longest war in their country.
Edmunds’ father, Donn Edmunds, said of McCollum, “That was a meaningless death. When I see people losing loved ones, all I do is remember my family.”
A 25-year-old former U.S. Army soldier serving in Vietnam, Edmunds remembers how two policemen knocked on his door outside Cheyenne just before sunrise on October 20, 2001, and told him of their son’s death.
“I looked out the window, I saw them standing there and all I could think was ‘Oh my God, I know why they came here.’ I have made announcements so I know, “said Edmunds, who as a military police officer took part in informing relatives of the death of a loved one. He pressed himself in silence as he watched the display of his son’s medals and the American flag he had been given to him by other fallen military families.
“He came in and gave us the words ‘Sorry to let you know’. My wife was up at that moment, and I saw her melt in this carpet on the floor,” recalls Edmunds. “And he asked, ‘Is there anything we can do?’ and we said, ‘No, just get us into this, and we have to accept this.’ ”
Wyoming is a very small country and loves traditions: rodeos and house shows during the summer, deer hunting in the fall, spring delivery season and war activity.
Jonn Edmunds and his friends grew up playing with water cannons, and then a laser tag on the big family yard. Eventually the honorable student went to paintball, recalled Donn Edmunds.
“We wanted the young men from the Air Force to come here. And he knocks on the door and says, ‘Would Jonn come out and play with us?’ ”He said.
On the other side of Cheyenne, FE Warren Air Force Base has been overseeing nuclear missiles under the Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska valleys since the 1960s. In July, the city hosted a major Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo but Cheyenne it has always been a battle town at heart.
Like Edmunds, McCollum appeared to be born of blood.
He grew up in the Jackson Hole area, a rugged, forested area with a rich culture outside Wyoming from Cheyenne. Even as a baby, McCollum played with toy guns, pretending to be a soldier or a hunter, the brothers said.
As a high school fighter, he was identified with strong teaching. At school, in 2017, he and his father he spoke openly while a handful of selected questions to read offered a “Trump shot” as the answer.
Jackson, where McCollum graduated from high school, is a ski resort and summer near Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks, which many in Wyoming see as more economically and politically neutral than the state.
However, the town of 10,000 has also shown respect for human rights activists and the military, especially in the last 20 years, said Joseph Burke, the commander of the US Army.
“It was on 9/11 that people began to recognize the freedom fighters, the commitment that they and their families have truly made,” Burke said. “We have kids who go preaching from here all the time.”
McCollum’s widow, Jiennah Crayton, is due to give birth in a few weeks and the family is preparing for a memorial service at a later date. So far, three online projects have brought more than $ 900,000 to Crayton and a child education.
After Jonn Edmunds’s death, television cars lined up outside the family. Journalists gathered at the school for their daughter, Donn Edmunds recalled, and the couple acted like “pets” for several weeks.
At a commemorative rally that filled the 4,500-seat gymnasium, Jonn Edmunds’ chief remembered him as a brutal soldier who still had “his strong face” even though some soldiers looked tired.
Such forces are not always available, however, in the case of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over the next two decades.
“Yes, people did go numb. But the families affected did not lose consciousness, ”said Edmunds.
The Edmunds family received nearly $ 24,000 in donations on a variety of occasions including the Wounded Warrior Project, a military charity that has been wounded since 2001, Edmunds said.
It has been many years since her son died after riding the Harley-Davidson and Patriot Guard Riders, a bicycle group that helps decorate Islamic funerals, underperforming at Wyoming Parliament and trying to attract attention to setting up memorials. He is now considering lobbying the US government to withdraw from Afghanistan, where he has been accused of misconduct.
“All of these boys were great. Each of them was a tragic loss for the family. And what does it want to know? “Edmunds said.” We’ve quit their job. “
The work of encouraging and counseling bereaved relatives, however, was helpful to him and his relatives, says Edmunds, 72, who runs a security business.
One woman was asked at a ceremony conducted by the Survivor Outreach Services military support group whether losing a loved one is easy, Edmunds recalled.
“Mother, it’s not going to be easy. The only thing that will happen to you is the time that will set you apart from the ceremony,” Edmunds said.
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Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed to the report.
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