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It was a graduation gift from his mother, a chance to skydive.
Quinn Johnson-Harris of Milwaukee made that first jump anddeclared: "I'm going to live in the sky."
And he did, joining the U.S. Air Force after graduating from Homestead High School, carving out a career and a calling, visiting 17 countries as he served his nation,just like his brothers and grandfather.
On Oct. 2, 2015, Johnson-Harris, an aircraft loadmaster,was ona C-130J Super Hercules plane that took offfrom Jalalabad Airfield, Afghanistan.
The flight lasted 28 seconds. There was a stall. The plane crashed, killing all 11 people on board, and three otherson the ground.
Quinn was 21.
A photo of Quinn Johnson-Harris, who was killed in Afghanistan on Oct. 2, 2015, is seen at his fathers house on Monday, May 24, 2021 in Milwaukee.(Photo: Angela Peterson / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Think of Quinn Johnson-Harris and his family on this Memorial Day weekend, as we mark a holiday suffused with sadness and reverence.
We remember those in the military who gave their lives defending the country. And this yearespecially,we recall sacrifices made in Afghanistan.
More than 3,100 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since 2001, including more than than 30 Wisconsinites.
"It's time to end America's longest war,"President Joe Biden declared in April when he orderedthe withdrawal of all remaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021.
"We went to Afghanistan in 2001 to root out al Qaeda, to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States planned from Afghanistan," Biden said. "Our objective was clear.The cause was just."
Families of the fallen, and veterans of the war, are left with their own reflections on their sacrifice and their service.
Yvette and LaMar HarrisSr. remember their son Quinn every day. His laugh, his smile and his exuberance. He's buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Yvette is raising his daughter and says the little girl looks just like him.
Yvette, a nurse, wears a button that shows her son's smiling face. LaMar, a retired operating engineer, has a tattoo on his left arm that honors his son.
They're divorced. But they retain a strongbond.
The military ties run deep in the family.
LaMar Harris, the father of Quinn Johnson-Harris who was killed in Afghanistan, holds a framed photo of the other airmen who were killed in the aircraft with his son on Oct. 2, 2015.(Photo: Angela Peterson / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Yvette's father was a Marine. When he died, her sons stood, saluted his casket and promised to serve in his honor.
There was Jeremy, who served in the Marines and passed away in a motorcycle accident in Indianapolis shortly before the first anniversary of his brother's death.
LaMar Jr. is a West Point graduate who is a U.S. Army captain in the Special Forces.
LaMar's stepson, Christopher Schaffer, just graduated from U.S. Army Ranger School.
And, of course, there was Quinn.
Yvette and LaMar wrestle with the war in Afghanistan.
LaMar said he agreed with the war's aims to help Afghanistan and the Afghan people.
"You don't want to lose loved ones, but any war you're going to lose loved ones," he said. "And they know when they sign that paper to defend the country, there's a possibility they may not come home."
"Our kids don't go in there and say, 'I want to fight and die,'" Yvette said. "Our kids go in there and say I want to serve this country. And because we are America and we're free and we have rights that so many people don't have, when we see suppressed people in the world, we go to help rescue them.
"Our purpose was to keep the Taliban at bay," she added. "And we did that, we did that very well."
The family suffered terrible loss.
"We just wake up every morning, knowing your child gave all he wanted to give to help other people," LaMarsaid.
"My heart as a mother, yeah, I wish we would have pulled out sooner," Yvette said. "But if this is your job, I actually put it on Facebook the day my kid left, anybody who wants a yellow ribbon to tie around a tree, come get it from me. You never think it's going to be you, people knocking on the door (to deliver news from overseas) but what keeps us free are the people who are selfless and serving.
"We gave," she added. "I've given a lot. And what I wish is that people in America don't forget. I don't want anybody to forget what my son did for us. I don't want them to forget his sacrifice for our nation."
Chris Kolenda, a retired U.S. Army colonel now living in Milwaukee, served fourcombat tours in Afghanistan. In 2008, Biden, then a U.S. senator, visited Kolenda's main outpost in the Kunar River Valley in eastern Afghanistan.
Chris Kolenda poses for a portrait Wednesday, May 19, 2021, at his home in Milwaukee. Kolenda is a retired colonel who did several tours in Afghanistan. Kolenda has received many awards and medals during his time.(Photo: Ebony Cox / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
After the visit, Kolenda received a letter from Biden that said: "No matter how many PowerPoints one may view, there is no substitute for being able to get out to a Forward Operating Base and get some ground-truth."
Kolenda's memories of Afghanistan are vivid.
"The absolute beauty of the country, the kindness of the people, the joy on kids' faces," he said.
But there are other, darker memories. During his tour, six soldiers he commanded died in combat.
"I think of my six soldiers, their faces, their families," he said.
Next summer, he plans a bicycle trip to honor those men in the places where they are buried, a journey that will take him from Nebraska to Arlington, Virginia.
He can still hear the boom of a rocket-propelled grenade that took the life of Maj. Tom Bostick, July 27, 2007. For his actions, putting himself between enemy fighters and his troops, Bostick received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest medal for combat valor.
Chris Kolenda points to Afghanistan on a map Wednesday, May 19, 2021, in Milwaukee. That is the location where his captain died.(Photo: Ebony Cox / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Ask Kolenda what he would tell families who lost loved ones in the long war, and he said: "The question you ask is very difficult because you don't have the sort of war that ends with a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York, or with a big surrender ceremony. That's not how these wars typically end."
There may be a lack of closure, he said, but at the same time, "soldiers were fighting alongside the people that they trained with, that they were friends with, and ultimately when you get in a firefight soldiers are fighting for one another, to protect one another. They all did that."
Kolenda agreed with the decision to end American involvement in the war. There are many ways the future may play out as the Afghan government and Taliban struggle for power and control.
"My thinking has evolved on this over the last 10 years," he said. "I think our presence at 2,500 soldiers, it was doing very little good and it was encouraging the worst behavior on the part of the key actors. So, peace hasn't been possible with our troops present. It might be possible with our troops no longer there and creating these perverse incentives."
Kolenda, who has authored a book called "Zero-Sum Victory: What We're Getting Wrong About War," said the U.S. is in need of national security reform.
"A war that goes on inconclusively for 20 years is not acceptable," he said. "We need to fix it."
In Beloit, a family remembers Tyler Kreinz.
Tyler was in middle school when the Twin Towers collapsed and the Pentagon was attacked.
He was upset, determined, andtold his mom that fateful day, Sept. 11, 2001: "I want to join the Army."
Tyler loved the outdoors and plannedto go to college and become a conservation warden. But first, hemade good on that youthful pledge, enlisting in the U.S. Army after he graduated from Beloit Memorial High School.
On June 18, 2011, in Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, Tyler was on a night patrol when the MRAP vehicle he was riding in overturned while crossing a river.
There was a desperate rescue attempt but Tyler and three others perished.
The next day, Father's Day, soldiers came to the Kreinz home to break the terrible news.
Tyler was gone. He was just 21.
U.S. Army Specialist Tyler Kreinz, of Beloit, died June 18, 2011, in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered during a vehicle crash.(Photo: Kreinz family photo.)
"His friends are in their 30s now and getting married and having children," said Tyler's mother, Mary Kreinz.
She and her husband, David, holdtight to the letters their sonsent home from training, and Germany and Afghanistan.
"I remember him feeling horrible for the women and children there," she said of his tour in Afghanistan. "I remember going to Goodwill to pick up Happy Meal toys that he could then give to the kids."
Her son shielded the family from his combat role in Afghanistan, telling them he mostly handled calls and did paperwork. Only later, after his death, did they learn he was on dangerous night patrols.
Mary Kreinz said she was glad that the war is now ending.
"It's been too long," she said. "9/11 made us realize there are some vicious people out there in the world."
She said she understood why American soldiers were sent to Afghanistan that al Qaeda needed to be disbanded but she is at a loss to make much sense of what occurred.
"We can't be fighting everyone's wars," she said. "They're fighting about religion, fighting about things we don't understand, we don't have business in."
Mary and her husband keep their son's memory alive through a memorial scholarship through the Wisconsin Conservation Warden Association.
"I would love everybody to know what a gentleman he was," Mary Kreinz said of her son. "And how strong he was."
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This Memorial Day, remember those who died in Afghanistan, and the loved ones they left behind - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel