I saw in passing that there was a new primary school (K-2) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina dedicated to the memory of CPT Kimberly Hampton. She was commanding Troop D, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry when she was shot down over Fallujah, Iraq. I believe she was the first female cavalry troop commander to have been killed in combat, at least in the 82d.
News story from the Fayetteville Observer
I didn't know her, although I'd met her once in passing in 2003. She was in the 82d Aviation Brigade S-3 section at the time, and I was visiting from the job I was in after having moved on from the 82d Airborne Division. I remember her, if only because I was talking to one of my former coworkers who was an aviation warrant officer, and I was talking about a fair number of very technical issues that were related to helicopters. I had mentioned that I wasn't an aviation officer, and she was surprised, since armor officers didn't usually have that kind of background.
I was seeing photos of the kids who were at the school, wearing shirts that featured a picture of an OH-58D armed recce helicopter, the type she was flying when she was killed, and there was something about it that made me really uneasy. I think it was associating children with something so starkly far away from Fort Bragg.
The OPFOR Cdr was teaching at Pope Elementary School when she and I met. In seeing what had changed in the last 15 years, I also saw that Pope ES was closing as the school district adapted to cover changes in the population at Fort Bragg.
Those were reminders of when I was much younger, when my life was very different for a lot of reasons, and I wish, far more than I should, in some ways, I could go back to choose differently along some of the things I ended up doing. It's also a reminder to me that even as a historian, I need to look forward, not backward, in my life, as difficult as it can be to do so.
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