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| Honoring Our Fallen /YOUTUBE |
How many more families will have to hear the death knell of the doorbell? At the very least, they should know what it is we’re fighting for.
In West Des Moines, Iowa, they all knew something was wrong.The texts that had been coming regularly suddenly stopped. Sgt. Declan Coady, serving in Kuwait, was out of contact. His family, waiting and worrying back home in West Des Moines, tried to stay positive. But as the hours slipped away without word from their soldier, the anxiety grew.
At 8 p.m. Sunday, the doorbell rang. It was a messenger military families have long dreaded.
“While it’s all blurry, we all knew what the doorbell meant,” Declan’s sister Keira Coady said in a statement released to the press.
The family of fallen soldier Sgt. Declan J. Coady has released a statement following his death at Shuaiba port in Kuwait, calling him “a rock in all of our lives” and “the most amazing brother and son my family could have asked for.” https://t.co/CUyVKhSiFj
— ABC News (@ABC) March 4, 2026The soldier, who joined the United States Army Reserve in 2023 and served as an Army Information Technology Specialist, died on his way to the hospital following an unmanned aircraft system attack, according to Keira Coady and the Department of War. He was among six members of the Des Moines-based 103rd Sustainment Command killed in the attack in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait — the first fallen in Operation Epic Fury. At 20, Coady was the youngest member of the Army support team to be killed in the opening day of the U.S.-Israel joint military operations in Iran.
Another Iowan, Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Waukee was killed in the airstrike. The other confirmed casualties are Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Neb.; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minn.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, Calif., is believed to be the sixth 103rd member killed. Military officials say he was at the scene when the unmanned craft struck.
Coady was posthumously promoted to sergeant.
Keira Coady said she wishes she could have called her little brother and told him how much she loved him, one last time. The regret, the helplessness, is palpable in her statement.
“I wish that I had been able to be there or trade places with him or anything just so he could have known he was safe and that we loved him and he didn’t need to be scared,” she said in the statement.
“He was 20 years old when he left for Kuwait in August, and 20 years old when he died. He was supposed to be 21 on May 5. He was just a baby, and will forever be mine and Aidan’s baby brother, Rowan’s older brother, and our parents’ son.”
‘Larger Waves Coming’
The families of the other five fallen members of the 103rd are going through similar internal struggles right now as they deal with a grief that they knew was possible but prayed would never come.
President Donald Trump has warned that there will likely be more casualties in the days to come. As The Federalist reported, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday signaled prolonged U.S. military involvement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, remarking that operations are “accelerating, not decelerating.”
“As President Trump said, more and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started,” Hegseth said.
He presented a rosy picture of the military operations thus far. The campaign certainly began with a bang, taking out the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and bombing the meeting place of the Assembly of Experts, gathered to deliberate on succession plans to replace the dead head of the regime. --->READ MORE HERE
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