A soldier's sacrifice, a family's heartache
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star
What's the hardest thing a soldier can do? Jason Palmerton asks this question before entering the Army.
It's just after Sept. 11, and the young man from Auburn wants to make a difference.
Be in Special Forces, Army people tell him.
The Green Berets train to handle anything. They go on the most dangerous missions.
But very few soldiers make it, maybe 1 percent who try.
Jason tells his mom, who lives in a yellow, one-story farmhouse a few miles outside of town.
Denise Brown is surprised.
He's muscular and tall. Six-foot-1. But he wasn't into athletics. He'd won medals in speech and debate at Auburn High. He'd had leads in school plays and talked about being a standup comedian.
But she knows he'll make it.
Sunday morning, Denise sees two men at the front door of the yellow farmhouse.
They're wearing Army uniforms.
They knock.
Denise doesn't want to answer.
January 2003: Jason arrives at Fort Bragg, N.C., to train to become a Special Forces communication sergeant.
Of the 1 percent of soldiers who make the Special Forces that year, Jason finishes in the top 10 percent.
He works at Fort Bragg in radio and computers. He's a whiz like that.
The guys he works with become brothers to Jason, an only son with three sisters.
One night, he and his buddies go to a party. He meets a girl. It's a formal ball for the veterinary school she attends.
He asks for her number. She gives him a fake one.
But there's something special about this big handsome guy with the great smile.
She gives him her real number.
He calls and calls and leaves messages until she finally calls back. He knows what he wants right away. Her. She's not so sure.
She's afraid. He wears the Green Beret.
But he has this aura that everything will be OK. He walks into a room and makes her and everyone else feel comfortable and happy.
They become inseparable. And she sees how much he loves his job, how he wakes up with a smile.
I'm making a difference, he tells her. I can't imagine doing anything else.
He becomes the first man she's loved.
He finds out he'll be going to Afghanistan in June. They take a week off and go to a North Carolina beach.
He proposes on the sand, and they decide to marry when he returns in February.
She's going to finish vet school and do her residency wherever he'll be. He's going to finish college and get out of the military. Maybe become a police officer or enter the FBI or CIA.
I want a son, he says.
I want a daughter, she says.
But that's up to me, he reminds her. I have the chromosomes that decide.
They want a photo to remember this moment on the beach.
No one is around. So Jason sticks out his arm and points the camera back at them.
They are laughing.
Tuesday morning, Shelley Austin looks at this photo of her and Jason on the beach.
It's her favorite now.
The 27-year-old from North Carolina arrived here at his mom's yellow farmhouse at about 3 a.m. that morning. Her sister, a doctor, came with her for support.
Jason got shot six weeks after arriving in Afghanistan, Shelley says. He was on patrol near the town of Qal'eh-Yegaz. He came under fire. He got out of his vehicle to return fire. He got shot just above the clavicle. Shelley's sister told her that means the bullet probably hit a major artery and that death came quick. He was 25.
Shelley flew here to help comfort his mom.
Denise hasn't been able to sleep or eat.
She's been remembering his last visit home at Christmas. Questioning God. Throwing up.
"It's like a horrible, horrible nightmare and you can't wake up."
With Shelley, Denise got out the old photo albums.
There's Jason as a baby. Jason in speech and drama. Jason in his Army dress uniform. Jason with his sisters, Amanda and Beth and Chelsey.
His father, Steve Palmerton, lives in Auburn, too, with Chelsey, Jason's half-sister. He has grandparents. Herman and Alice Moenning live in Lincoln. Tom Palmerton lives in Brownville.
All of them wait for word on when his body will return from Afghanistan so they can make funeral arrangements.
They know Jason, if he were here, in this yellow farmhouse this morning, would be trying to make them smile. Telling a good joke.
Telling them he was meant to wear the Green Beret.
But still, they cry.
Because this is the hardest thing a soldier's family can do.
Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.
Military deaths with Nebraska connections
As of Tuesday, 23 U.S. service members with Nebraska connections have died in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginning of military operations following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the Department of Defense and family.
Latest Nebraskan to be killed, according to the Department of Defense:
- Sgt. Jason T. Palmerton, 25, of Auburn, died July 23 in Qal'eh-Yegaz, Afghanistan, after coming under enemy fire during a foot patrol. Palmerton was a Green Beret assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group.
Previously reported by the Department of Defense or families:
- Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson, 34, of Omaha was killed July 14 near Trebil, Iraq, when a roadside bomb exploded near her ambulance.
- U.S. Army Pfc. Eric Paul Woods, 26, Omaha, was killed by an explosion July 9 in Iraq when he stopped to help a wounded soldier. Woods was assigned to G Troop, 2nd Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Carson, Colo.
- U.S. Marine Sgt. Nick Nolte, a native of Falls City, died Nov. 24 at National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., from injuries received when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb near Baghdad.
- Lance Cpl. Shane E. Kielion, 23, La Vista, died Nov. 15 as the result of action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
- Army 1st Lt. Edward D. Iwan, 28, Albion, died Nov. 12 in Fallujah when a grenade struck his vehicle. He was assigned to the Army's 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany.
- Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Eric L. Knott, 21, Grand Island, was killed Sept. 4 in an attack in Iraq. He was assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4, Port Hueneme, Calif.
- Sgt. 1st Class Linda Tarango-Griess, 33, Sutton, was killed July 11, 2004, when a roadside bomb exploded in Iraq. She was a member of the Nebraska Army National Guard.
- Sgt. Jeremy Fischer, 26, Lincoln, was killed July 11, 2004, when a roadside bomb exploded in Iraq. He was a member of the Nebraska Army National Guard.
- Lance Cpl. Kyle Codner, 19, Shelton, was killed May 26, 2004, while conducting security and stability operations in Iraq's Anbar province.
- Cpl. Matthew Henderson, 25, Bennet, was killed with Codner and another Marine. Henderson and Codner were assigned to 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
- Spc. Dennis Morgan, 22, Valentine, was killed April 17, 2004, when a roadside bomb exploded south of Baghdad. He was a member of the 153rd Engineer Battalion of Winner, S.D.
- Pvt. Noah Lee Boye, 21, Grand Island, was killed when his Marine Unit came under fire near Fallujah.
- Sgt. David McKeever, 25, Buffalo, N.Y. McKeever, who was buried in his wife's hometown of Kearney, was killed April 5, 2004, in an ambush outside Baghdad. He was member of the Army's 1st Armored Division.
- Sgt. Cory R. Mracek, 26, Hay Springs, based out of Fort Bragg, N.C., was killed Jan. 27, 2004, when a roadside bomb exploded west of Baghdad.
- Sgt. Dennis A. Corral, 33, Kearney, died Jan. 1, 2004, when traveling in a convoy to Baghdad International Airport. Officials said Corral's vehicle went out of control and rolled over. Corral, based out of Fort Riley, Kan., was assigned to Company C, 1st Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.
- Spc. James R. Wolf, 21, Scottsbluff, was killed Nov. 6, 2003, in Mosul, Iraq, when a homemade bomb exploded near his convoy. He was an engineer assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Co. of the 52nd Engineer Battalion of the 43rd Area Support Group, based in Fort Carson, Colo.
- Staff Sgt. Daniel Bader, 28, York, was one of 15 U.S. soldiers killed Nov. 2, 2003, in an attack on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter near Fallujah. He was assigned to Tiger Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
- Staff Sgt. Christopher W. Swisher, 26, Lincoln, was one of two soldiers killed when their patrol was ambushed and hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades Oct. 9, 2003, in Baghdad. He was assigned to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment
- Petty Officer 3rd Class David J. Moreno, 26, Gering, died July 17, 2003, in Iraq from an accidental gunshot wound. He was a Navy medic assigned to the 4th Marine Division.
- Spc. Nathaniel A. Caldwell, 27, Omaha, was killed May 21, 2003, when his vehicle rolled over in Baghdad. He was an Army tank mechanic assigned to the 404th Air Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Division.
- Capt. Travis A. Ford, 30, Ogallala, was killed April 4, 2003, when his helicopter crashed near Ali Aziziyal in Iraq. He was assigned to the Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron-267, marine Aircraft Group 39.
- Sgt. Philip J. Svitak, 31, Fremont, was killed March 4, 2002, when the helicopter he was riding in was shot down in Afghanistan. Svitak was an aircraft repairman with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment of Fort Campbell, Ky.
SOURCE: The Associated Press
Post Your Comment
Standards and RulesYour posted comment will appear after it has been approved.
Frequently asked questions about story commenting.