October 10, 2026 - VFW Post 8904 and members of the community gathered on Friday, October 9, 2026 on the Historic Courthouse square to remember those who served in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Larry Hume, Post Adjutant, welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming and choosing to stand at the Veterans Memorial to remember. “Remembrance is not automatic. It’s something people decide to do and we are grateful that all of you decided to do it with us. Today, we gather to remember those who served in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom and the years that followed. And hold close the families that still carry what that war cost.”
Post Member Quartermaster Mary Roberts then led everyone in prayer for those who served in Afghanistan, the ones who came home and the ones who did not. She asked a special blessing on the families whose loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice. The pledge of allegiance was then recited by all in attendance.
Hume said, “The 7th of October, 2001, the United States of America answered the attacks of September the eleventh. Aircraft struck terrorist targets in Afghanistan, and Operation Enduring Freedom began. It became the longest war in our history. A generation of young Americans carried it into the mountains, on the roads, at the outposts, and at the gates. More than twenty-four hundred American service members died in that war. They came from big cities, from towns no bigger than Center, Texas, or Shelbyville. Five years ago, if you’ll remember, on the 26 of August 2021, thirteen of them were killed at Abbey Gate, outside of Kabul’s airport, in the last days before the withdrawal. We remember them this morning also; their names belong with the rest.
"Now, Shelby County, Texas, felt that war in the way that this country has felt every war. Staff Sergeant Kevin Casey Roberts was 25 years old. He was not born here but he married a Shelby County lady. He came to love this place, and asked to be buried among his people if something happened to him. On the 7th of May of 2008, in the Sabari District of Afghanistan, the vehicle that he was in struck an improvised explosive device, better known as an IED. He was a soldier of the 101st Airborne. He left a wife, Donnice, and two small children, Caehlen and Keeghan. And as he wished, he rests now in the West Hamilton Cemetery in Shelbyville, Texas.
"Then, five months later, on the 14th of October 2008, Specialist Cory Joseph Bertrand was killed the same way when his vehicle struck an IED. Cory was 18 years old - one month short of his 19 birthday. His mother Charlotte had signed his enlistment papers when he was 17. He told his family he had found a purpose to protect them and to protect his country. And he served with the 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Hood. He rests in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery, also in Shelbyville. I personally remember both of those funerals as I attended both of them. They were not symbols they were sons, one was a husband and a father, one was a young man who walked the place with his grandfather and both are ours. In their honor and in honor of those who served and sacrificed Comrade Erik Choron will lay our memorial wreath.
"A sacrifice does not end when the news moves on. It live in a kitchen, in a cemetery road, in a child who grows up on stories. This post will keep these stories. We will say the name, we will not let Cory or Casey or the thousands besides them slip into silence."
In honor of all those who fell in Afghanistan and those who survived the war but have since left us, the burglar, Derrick Roberts sounded Taps.
Following Taps, members in the audience shared of their service as well as the service of family members in Afghanistan.
