Oak Kitten
05-28-2006, 08:35 AM
If you are among those people who actually pause at some point over Memorial Day Weekend to contemplate the sacrifices made by Americans in our Armed Forces past and present, I would ask you to keep in your thoughts a friend of mine who lost his life in Iraq in August 2003.
I met LT Kylan Jones-Huffman when we were both serving as instructors at the United States Naval Academy in 1999 – 2000. He was one of the most brilliant, talented and genuinely nice people that I have had the privilege to know in my life. He was a true Renaissance Man. Among the many foreign languages he spoke were German, French, Farsi and Arabic. He was an advanced practitioner of martial arts and had a ravenous intellect and eclectic taste in music that ranged all over the map. He also liked to cook and wrote haiku. When he finished his tour at the Academy, he planned to leave the navy and go to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies, because he wanted to apply his formidable talents to helping find a path towards a peaceful resolution to that conflict-ridden part of the world. The last time I saw him was in December, 2002 when I ran into him at the Washington Navy Yard. I was in the process of demobilization after having been recalled to active duty for a year following 9/11. Kylan was working for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as a civilian, but he also affiliated with a naval reserve unit, and it was in that capacity that he was mobilized and sent to Iraq. His mission was to brief the military personnel who coming into the theater on aspects of Iraqi and Middle Eastern culture to help avoid unnecessary conflict and misunderstanding. Kylan did not agree with the decision to invade Iraq, but he felt obligated to go there and do what he could to clean up the mess the Americans had made there.
On August 23, 2003 I was driving to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia with my niece when I heard over the radio that Kylan had been killed in Hillah, Iraq on 21 August. The SUV in which he was traveling got stalled in a crowd of people in the marketplace. Someone ran out of the crowd and put a bullet in the back of his neck. The guy was actually apprehended and brought to trial by Iraqi authorities, found guilty and sentenced to prison. He said he shot Kylan because he “looked Jewish.” Kylan’s dad, a retired Army officer said, "The guy couldn’t have picked a worse guy to shoot, Above and beyond our personal situation, he was looking for a way to improve the lot of the people in Iraq."
Kylan’s memorial service at the Naval Academy Chapel lasted nearly three hours, as scores of people whose lives he touched came forward to attest to what a truly exceptional person we lost. Every night I watch the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and at the end of the program they broadcast in silence the names and photos of the men and women who continue to lose their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. It breaks my heart to see such a waste of life. I live in dread of the day when the name and face of one of my former students is flashed up on the screen. The men and women who have chosen to wear the uniform have to rely upon the collective wisdom of the American people and their elected representatives not to send them into ill-advised military adventures. Well, they are paying the price for the failure of our massively dysfunctional democracy, which this administration is so intent upon exporting at the point of a gun. I can only hope that we will learn from this debacle. In the meantime, please honor the fallen and keep their sacrifice and the suffering of their families in your thoughts, and do whatever you can to stop this insanity.
If you are interested in reading more about Kylan, you can go to: http://www.militarycity.com/valor/256717.html and http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com/oif/profiles/joneshuffmankylana.html
Oak
I met LT Kylan Jones-Huffman when we were both serving as instructors at the United States Naval Academy in 1999 – 2000. He was one of the most brilliant, talented and genuinely nice people that I have had the privilege to know in my life. He was a true Renaissance Man. Among the many foreign languages he spoke were German, French, Farsi and Arabic. He was an advanced practitioner of martial arts and had a ravenous intellect and eclectic taste in music that ranged all over the map. He also liked to cook and wrote haiku. When he finished his tour at the Academy, he planned to leave the navy and go to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies, because he wanted to apply his formidable talents to helping find a path towards a peaceful resolution to that conflict-ridden part of the world. The last time I saw him was in December, 2002 when I ran into him at the Washington Navy Yard. I was in the process of demobilization after having been recalled to active duty for a year following 9/11. Kylan was working for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as a civilian, but he also affiliated with a naval reserve unit, and it was in that capacity that he was mobilized and sent to Iraq. His mission was to brief the military personnel who coming into the theater on aspects of Iraqi and Middle Eastern culture to help avoid unnecessary conflict and misunderstanding. Kylan did not agree with the decision to invade Iraq, but he felt obligated to go there and do what he could to clean up the mess the Americans had made there.
On August 23, 2003 I was driving to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia with my niece when I heard over the radio that Kylan had been killed in Hillah, Iraq on 21 August. The SUV in which he was traveling got stalled in a crowd of people in the marketplace. Someone ran out of the crowd and put a bullet in the back of his neck. The guy was actually apprehended and brought to trial by Iraqi authorities, found guilty and sentenced to prison. He said he shot Kylan because he “looked Jewish.” Kylan’s dad, a retired Army officer said, "The guy couldn’t have picked a worse guy to shoot, Above and beyond our personal situation, he was looking for a way to improve the lot of the people in Iraq."
Kylan’s memorial service at the Naval Academy Chapel lasted nearly three hours, as scores of people whose lives he touched came forward to attest to what a truly exceptional person we lost. Every night I watch the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and at the end of the program they broadcast in silence the names and photos of the men and women who continue to lose their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. It breaks my heart to see such a waste of life. I live in dread of the day when the name and face of one of my former students is flashed up on the screen. The men and women who have chosen to wear the uniform have to rely upon the collective wisdom of the American people and their elected representatives not to send them into ill-advised military adventures. Well, they are paying the price for the failure of our massively dysfunctional democracy, which this administration is so intent upon exporting at the point of a gun. I can only hope that we will learn from this debacle. In the meantime, please honor the fallen and keep their sacrifice and the suffering of their families in your thoughts, and do whatever you can to stop this insanity.
If you are interested in reading more about Kylan, you can go to: http://www.militarycity.com/valor/256717.html and http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com/oif/profiles/joneshuffmankylana.html
Oak