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 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.
