Several readers have contacted us to compliment Amy Wilson on her story last Friday about the funeral of Sgt. Robert Ehney, who was killed in Iraq. Amy joined our staff last year after many years as a reporter for larger newspapers, most recently the Orange County Register in California. Despite having covered all kinds of stories, Amy said she was especially moved by this one. I asked her to share her thoughts about it with you:
"I guess I did not really know what to expect, going in, so I was a blank slate except for my advance knowledge of the war itself and the particulars of how Sgt. Ehney had died. I drove up to the Kerr Brothers Funeral Home and was immediately surprised to see a phalanx of flags and what looked to be veterans lining the street and the entrance. I was a half-hour early and already the contingent from Fort Knox was there, as were the Blue Star Mothers. I barely got a parking place.
"I walked into something equally astonishing. I saw the pictures of the Rob as a boy and then I saw his four-year-old son walk through to the family section. No one could have been unaffected by the juxtaposition of Rob’s life and Rob’s death. I sat in the back, out of respect as I did not know Rob, and took notes. Then we were to all continue to Camp Nelson National Cemetery.
"Nothing had prepared me for the way average Kentuckians behaved when they saw the cortege. I simply could not believe my eyes. It wasn’t just that no traffic dared to pass the line of funeral cars or that no one honked in impatience. It was just this very spontaneous and sincere show of respect for this boy who, I’m guessing, was nameless to them. It was just that his body had come their way — flanked as it was by military escorts, paramilitary squadrons of motorcyclists and hundreds of flags — and they reacted, each in their own way, to the sight.
"The only thing I could do, I knew, was write a story which would describe precisely that. And I guess I realized that the story of a soldier’s death was not something that happened to other people and over there. It was among us and we — all of us — know it."
Tom Eblen
Managing Editor
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