The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
5 June 2007
The record: Technical Sergeant Ryan A. Balmer of Mishawaka, an Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent of Detachment 113, was killed at Kirkuk, Iraq, on 5 June 2007 — the post-2001 wars' only Mishawaka dead, whose death and its circumstances stand in the Wars section. The decoration record for him in the sources reached is the Purple Heart: the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center's honor roll of Indiana's military dead, built from the Defense Department's casualty file, renders his entry "K, PH" — killed, Purple Heart. This section prints the award on that record. The tributes paid to him in the Congressional Record in June and November 2007 — which stand in Wars and in the commemorations article below — name no decoration list, and no Bronze Star or other valor award for Balmer was found in any source; the absence is printed as plainly as the award.
Sources:
- Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, honor roll of Indiana military deaths (from the Defense Department casualty file): Balmer entry, "K, PH."
- Congressional Record, Senate, 11 June 2007, and House, 13 November 2007: the tributes to Balmer, naming no decorations.
- Wars section of this build (the Balmer article: the death, the escort home, the burial).