Today We Celebrate

Today we are celebrating the 50th birthday of a very special guy, ABN’s son Darin. What joy he was! A bright, happy and inquisitive little boy, he grew to be an intellectual, compassionate and giving man. He provided us with an enormous amount of joy and pride. He had a knack for making good choices; his best was the choice of a spouse. Without him we would never have known our most caring and loyal daughter-in-law, Holly. We love her as though she were our daughter. He approached parenting as he did many of his endeavors, an opportunity to make the world a better place. We can’t imagine life without his daughters, Alison and Camille who carry on his spirit of adventure, compassion and giving back.

Darin continues to make us proud as he and his work in Afghanistan were mentioned in a new book by best-selling author, Steve Coll. We haven’t had a chance to read Directorate S: TheC.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as it was just released earlier this month. We will be picking our copy up next week. He was committed to using his skills to improve the lives of the Afghan people. As he told his daughters in a letter before his first deployment “My reasons for going to Afghanistan include an honorable sense of duty to help others.” When we hear or read about the progress of education and women’s rights in Afghanistan, we believe he helped make a difference.

Sunday, February 25th will mark the 6th anniversary of the day he lost his life serving with the USAF in the Afghan Interior Ministry, working as an advisor to the Afghan National Police. For those of us that love him, it will be a day of reflection and sadness. Our thoughts will wonder. What would he look like today? Would his hair be turning gray? Would he still be in the Air Force? What would be his rank? Where would he be stationed? The Pentagon? Or maybe he would be retired from the Air Force and following his dream to teach at a university. As we travel into the “wonder” land, no doubt we will shed some more tears.

But for today, we are going to eat Snickerdoodles, share memories, and marvel at what an amazing child and man Darin was. If you are inclined, you may want to join us as we toast him with a good beer (he loved a nice, dark craft brew.)

On Monday we will wipe our tears, put a smile back on our faces and renew our resolve to follow his examples to do our part to make a difference.

If you didn’t have the opportunity to know Lt Col J. Darin Loftis, you can read about him on the J. Darin LoftisMemorial Scholarship blog.

If you are interested, excerpts that speaks about Darin in Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's SecretWars in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be found on Amazon, “Look inside,” the chapter on Afghan Hands, page 586. Also parts of the impact statements from Holly and the girls that were read at the trial of the person responsible for his murder can be found on page 670.

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