Wyoming troop deaths 20 years apart bookend Afghanistan war

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Donn Edmunds, a 25-year U.S. Army seasoned who served successful Vietnam, sits for a representation successful his surviving country successful Cheyenne, Wyo., Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021. Edmunds' son, Army Ranger Spc. Jonn Edmunds, and different worker died erstwhile a Black Hawk chopper connected a search-and-rescue ngo crashed successful Pakistan successful October 2001. They were among the archetypal U.S. casualties successful the Afghanistan war. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – When quality came that a 20-year-old Wyoming worker was 1 of the past casualties of the two-decade-long U.S. warfare successful Afghanistan, it arrived arsenic a tragic bookend: A 20-year-old worker from Wyoming was among the archetypal to dice successful the aforesaid war.

Army Ranger Spc. Jonn Edmunds, of Cheyenne, was 1 of the war's archetypal 2 casualties erstwhile a Black Hawk chopper connected a search-and-rescue ngo crashed successful Pakistan connected Oct. 19, 2001.

Last month, the household of Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, of Bondurant conscionable extracurricular Jackson, got connection helium was among 13 U.S. soldiers killed successful a termination bombing Aug. 26 astatine the Kabul airport.

Edmunds and McCollum were some killed connected their archetypal deployments. In between, astir 2,500 U.S. troops died successful the Afghanistan war, astir with acold little attraction than the 2 Wyoming men got.

As with Edmunds’ decease successful the chaotic aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, violent attacks, McCollum’s strikes an particularly bittersweet chord arsenic Americans conflict to process what bully — if immoderate — has travel from their nation’s longest war.

“That was a wholly senseless death," Edmunds’ father, Donn Edmunds, said of McCollum. “Seeing the different radical losing their loved ones, each that does is bring backmost atrocious memories for my family."

A 25-year U.S. Army seasoned who served successful Vietnam, Edmunds remembers however 2 officers knocked connected his doorway connected the outskirts of Cheyenne earlier sunrise connected Oct. 20, 2001, bringing connection of his son’s death.

“I looked retired the window, I saw them lasting determination and each I could deliberation was ‘Oh my God, I cognize what they’re present for.’ I’ve done notifications truthful I knew,” said Edmunds, who arsenic a subject constabulary serviceman participated successful telling relatives of loved ones' deaths. He got choked up and quiescent portion looking astatine a show of his son’s medals and the folded American emblem presented to him and different families of fallen soldiers.

“They came successful and gave america the ‘Regret to pass you’ speech. My woman had been up by then, and I watched her melt into this carpet close present connected the floor," Edmunds recalled. "And they asked, ‘Is determination thing we tin do?’ and we said, ‘No, conscionable fto america sorb this, and we person to beryllium capable to judge this.’”

Wyoming is the slightest populated authorities and 1 that values tradition: rodeo and region fairs successful summer, elk hunting successful fall, calving play successful outpouring and subject service.

Jonn Edmunds and his friends grew up playing with h2o guns, past laser tag successful the family’s large yard. Eventually the honors pupil moved up to paintball, Donn Edmunds recalled.

“We utilized to person the guys from the Air Force travel retired here. And they’d sound connected the doorway and say, ‘Can Jonn travel retired and play paintball with us?’” helium said.

On the other broadside of Cheyenne, F.E. Warren Air Force Base has overseen atomic missiles successful silos beneath the Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska plains since the 1960s. Each July, the metropolis hosts its monolithic Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo festival but Cheyenne has ever been a subject municipality astatine heart.

Like Edmunds, McCollum seemed calved with soldiering successful his blood.

He grew up successful the Jackson Hole area, a portion of rugged, forested mountains and big-time outdoors civilization connected the different broadside of Wyoming from Cheyenne. Even arsenic a toddler, McCollum played with artifact rifles, pretending helium was a worker oregon hunter, relatives said.

As a precocious schoolhouse wrestler, helium distinguished himself by grooming intensely. At school, successful 2017, helium and his begetter spoke retired publicly erstwhile a multiple-choice quiz for a speechmaking duty facetiously offered “shooting astatine Trump” arsenic an answer.

On Friday, hundreds of radical lined the streets of Jackson to grant McCollum arsenic his remains returned location from Afghanistan. Many radical drove from surrounding towns, immoderate aggregate hours away, to wage their respects, and instrumentality enforcement saluted arsenic the hearse passed by.

“I wrestled with him each my life. He was a elder erstwhile I was a freshman,” said Colter Dawson of Jackson. “He died for our country. There’s not that galore radical who get to marque that benignant of honorable sacrifice, and that’s thing this municipality and this state request to admit more.”

Jackson, wherever McCollum graduated from precocious school, is simply a affluent skis and summertime tourism enclave adjacent Grand Teton and Yellowstone nationalist parks that galore successful Wyoming presumption arsenic socioeconomically retired of measurement and politically much mean than the remainder of the state.

Yet the municipality of 10,000 has shown nary little respect for veterans and subject service, particularly implicit the past 20 years, said Joseph Burke, commandant of the section American Legion post.

“It was astir 9/11 that radical started to admit veterans, the sacrifices they and their families truly made,” Burke said. “We've got kids who spell successful the work from present each the time.”

McCollum’s widow, Jiennah Crayton, is owed to present a babe successful a mates of weeks and the household plans a memorial work sometime after. Meanwhile, 3 online fundraising efforts person brought successful implicit $900,000 for Crayton and the child’s education.

After Jonn Edmunds’ death, tv trucks lined up extracurricular the family's home. Reporters gathered astatine their daughter’s school, Donn Edmunds recalled, and the household lived similar “hermits” for a fewer weeks.

At a memorial work that filled a 4,500-seat gym, Jonn Edmunds’ commanding serviceman remembered him arsenic a gritty worker who inactive had “that aggravated look connected his face” adjacent aft different soldiers looked tired.

Such crowds wouldn’t ever amusement up, however, astatine services for soldiers killed successful Afghanistan and Iraq implicit the adjacent 2 decades.

“Yeah, radical got numb. But the families that were affected ne'er got numb,” Edmunds said.

The Edmunds household received astir $24,000 successful donations which they gave distant to causes including the Wounded Warrior Project, a foundation for troops wounded since 2001, Edmunds said.

He has spent the years since his son’s decease riding his Harley-Davidson with the Patriot Guard Riders, a biker radical that helps support decorum astatine subject funerals, moving unsuccessfully for the Wyoming Legislature and trying to rise involvement successful establishing a veterans memorial park. Now he’s reasoning astir suing the U.S. authorities implicit its withdrawal from Afghanistan, which helium criticized arsenic poorly organized.

“All of these people’s sons were great. Every 1 of them was a traumatic nonaccomplishment for their family. And the happening astir it is, what for?” Edmunds said. “We person abandoned their mission.”

The enactment of consoling and counseling grief-stricken relatives, however, was therapeutic some for him and for relatives, said Edmunds, 72, who runs a information business.

A pistillate erstwhile asked astatine an lawsuit held by the Army’s Survivor Outreach Services household enactment radical whether losing a loved 1 ever got easier, Edmunds recalled.

“I said ‘Ma’am, it volition ne'er get easier. The lone happening that volition hap to you is clip volition abstracted you from the event,’” Edmunds said.