Dangers of the World Come Home
The news was bad enough Saturday—word that an ambush in Syria had killed two American service members and their interpreter, and seriously injured three other American service members.
As the day progressed came word that the service members were from Iowa…then, specifically, from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, currently serving in the Middle East.
It all became very real, very fast.
One of the two killed was from Marshalltown; 29-year-old Nate Howard was about to re-enlist for his 12th year wearing the uniform…his wife told the Times-Republican newspaper there that he had planned to put in 20 years of service. The Marshalltown High School grad worked as an engraver for Emerson in Marshalltown and had been on deployment for six months when he was killed by a lone ISIS gunman.
His wife Arianna told the newspaper, “His service made him feel like he was making a difference in this world, and it definitely did.” She called him her soulmate, and said, “We just bought a new homestead that we were supposed to grow old in, but unfortunately we can’t make those memories like we planned.”
I recall the last years of the Vietnam War, and each week Walter Cronkite would report the number of American dead vs. North Vietnamese dead, complete with a graphic, on the CBS Evening News. That’s the clinical side of war, numbers.
As always, each of those numbers is tied to a person. And now, for the first time since 2011, Iowa National Guard members have died in combat…and those numbers are tied to our people.
