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2007
The roll: Indiana's casualty rolls for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — the Defense Department's casualty file as rendered by the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center and the state's compiled lists — were read whole for a Mishawaka home of record. The Afghanistan roll carries no Mishawaka name. The Iraq roll carries one. Mishawaka's death roll for the post-2001 wars is a single name, and it is printed whole.
The man: Ryan Andrew Balmer, technical sergeant, United States Air Force, thirty-three years old, of Mishawaka. He enlisted in the Air Force shortly after graduating from Mishawaka High School — the Senate's tribute in the Congressional Record of June 11, 2007, dates the graduation to 1993; the Associated Press account carried by the Military Times said 1992, and the disagreement is printed as it stands, the school's record being the settler. He made his career in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and was serving as a special agent of Detachment 113, 1st Field Investigations Region, out of Hill Air Force Base, Utah, temporarily assigned to the OSI's expeditionary detachment in Iraq. On June 5, 2007, five and a half months into a six-month tour, his convoy was returning to Kirkuk Regional Air Base when an improvised explosive device detonated beside it about two miles south of the base; he was killed instantly, and Staff Sergeant Matthew J. Kuglics died with him. He was awarded the Purple Heart. His body was escorted home by his cousin, an Air Force captain, and Mishawaka buried its airman that June.
The town's answer: Five months later, on Veterans Day 2007, American Legion Post 161 of Mishawaka rededicated itself in his name — the House tribute in the Congressional Record of November 13, 2007, records that "American Legion Post 161 in Mishawaka just this past Sunday rededicated itself on Veterans Day as Ryan A. Balmer Post 161." The post whose committees had built Normain Heights for the veterans of 1946 now carries the name of the town's Iraq dead, and the post's own paperwork — the state alcohol-board filings name the corporation "Ryan A. Balmer Post 161 of the American Legion Inc," at 133 East Mishawaka Avenue — keeps the name in the town's weekly record. The post's war-service side is carried in the veterans article below; its institutional course belongs to the fraternal-and-civic leg.
The Desert Storm interval: Between Vietnam and Balmer stands the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91.
Sources:
- Congressional Record, vol. 153, Senate, June 11, 2007, "Honoring Our Armed Forces — Technical Sergeant Ryan A. Balmer"; House, November 13, 2007, "Honoring Our Fallen Heroes" (the Post 161 rededication).
- Military Times, Honor the Fallen: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Ryan A. Balmer (Associated Press account); Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, military deaths honor roll from the Defense casualty file (Balmer entry: TSGT, Iraqi Freedom, June 5, 2007, home Mishawaka, Det 113, 1st Field Investigations Region, Hill AFB).
- U.S. Air Force / DVIDS, "OSI detachment honors fallen agent" (the June 5, 2007 convoy account); Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission filings for Ryan A. Balmer Post 161, 133 E. Mishawaka Ave.