65
blood that has been spilt for our country would
be absolute blasphemy.”
She spoke with Army Major Travis Reinold,
who had traveled with Brent’s remains alone in
the C-17’s cavernous cargo hold from Afghani-
stan. He did not witness Brent’s death, but had
served the past three months with him. The
two of them were part of a 10-officer team at-
tached to the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regi-
ment. Their job was to train Afghan comman-
dos so they could work with American special
operators on raid missions. It was supposed to
be a safe assignment.
Reinold told Jennie how much the other of-
ficers respected Brent. He told her how every-
one on base knew him because his salt-and-
pepper hair contrasted with that of the younger
soldiers and Afghans. He told her that Afghans
respected Brent because he spent time with
them in their camps. Jennie knew this was
true. Major Abdul Rahman Rahmani, an Af-
ghan Army helicopter pilot, posted a letter on
Twitter addressed to Jennie that outlined his
admiration for Brent, whom he called a “com-
passionate man whose life was not just mean-
ingful, it was inspirational.”
Over the next six days, the mortuary team at
Dover prepared Brent for burial. They washed
his hair, cleaned his wounds and dressed him in
his blue Class A uniform. They pinned a golden
oak leaf to each of his shoulders, indicating his
rank as major, and more than a dozen medals
and ribbons to the left side of his chest, includ-
ing a Bronze Star; a Purple Heart; and a Com-
bat Action Badge, a two-inch silver pin featur-
ing a bayonet wrapped in an oak wreath. The
meticulous process is carried out whether or
not anyone decides to view the body. Jennie’s
family did not.
Brent’s remains landed at Roland R. Wright
Air National Guard Base in Salt Lake City on
Nov. 14. Six troops transferred the flag-draped
casket to a white hearse, and more than two
dozen law-enforcement officers on motorcy-
cles fell into formation behind it as it drove the
46 miles north to North Ogden on Interstate 15.
Drivers yielded out of respect and people lined
the roads and looked on from overpasses. Jen-
nie, trailing the hearse in a white van with the
rest of the family, felt like she was watching the
funeral procession from outside her body. “It
was like a movie,” she says. “People were every-
where: kids, flags, adults. Everywhere.”
In North Ogden, hundreds of residents
stood in the cold for more than an hour along
both sides of Washington Boulevard to see the
mayor’s return. When the hearse rolled past,
there was silence, except for the rumble of mo-
tors from police vehicles and the flapping of
American flags.^
At the end of a
busy workweek,
Jennie waits for the
children to finish
brushing their teeth