Today, in small-town gatherings a little over 100 miles apart, two more families will remember and honor their sons.  

 The young men — the two Wisconsin soldiers killed in combat since last Memorial Day — represent the fewest number of state soldiers who have died since the start of the Iraq War. In its peak, 20 Wisconsin service members died between Memorial Day 2004 and 2005.  

 But the deaths of Army Reserve Sgt. Daniel Thompson, of Portage, and Army 1st. Lt. Nick Dewhirst, of Onalaska, are a reminder of what’s still at stake in Iraq and the rocky terrain of Afghanistan, where they died. 

The men were both in their mid-20s when they died months apart in convoys in eastern Afghanistan. They are remembered as active, strong-willed children who grew into adults whose interest in military service blossomed after the 9/11 attacks. Each voiced his strong desire to be part of the fight. 

And both had mothers who felt their hearts drop when they learned their sons were going to war. Today, those mothers tell their sons’ stories.

ARMY 1ST. LT.
NICK DEWHIRST
Aug. 25, 1982 - July 20, 2008
Grew up: Onalaska
Died: Qalandar district, Khost province, Afghanistan
 

This morning, Nick Dewhirst’s family planned to be at the Onalaska Cemetery — the same place they are every Memorial Day. It’s the place Nick spent Memorial Days from the time he was a Cub Scout laying wreaths on the white memorials to fallen soldiers.

Memorial Day has always been a big deal for the family, in part because one of Nick’s grandfathers was a military pilot who died in 1951 during a training exercise.

When Nick was growing up, he and his friends played being Navy Seals, facing danger with commando skills.

“He was kind of an adventurous little boy,” said his mother, Susan Dewhirst. “He was not the one to sit and watch TV. He was out in the garage with his dad or hiking in the woods.”

He and his two brothers all reached the rank of Eagle Scout. Nick grew more serious as the years passed, more focused on setting goals and accomplishing them.

He didn’t talk about it much, but he’d developed an interest in joining the military.

His mother said it caught her off guard when he was approaching high school graduation in 2001 and announced he had applied to military schools.

“We didn’t even know he was applying to military academies,” his mother said. “I was a little surprised and taken aback, because my dad died in the military.”

They talked it over.

“I remember at the time realizing what it would all mean, the dangers of it,” she said. “I asked him, ‘You know what you’re doing, Nick?’ and he said ‘Yep, I know what I’m doing.’ ” “I didn’t need to question it , because it was what he wanted to do and it was an honorable profession,” she said. “People asked me what I thought about it, and I said it was Nick’s decision.”

He studied for a year in an ROTC program in Florida, then went to the U.S. Military Academy, graduating in 2006.
Nick enrolled in training for parachuting, combat diving, and special warfare techniques. When he was off duty, he was running, rock-climbing, scuba diving and BASE jumping.

He impressed his superiors.

After a short stint as a platoon leader at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, he was promoted to executive officer, handling logistics and answering directly to the company commander. In March 2008, he shipped out to Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne.

He was stationed at Mando Zayi Combat Outpost, a small fortified compound in a village surrounded by mountains.
It wasn’t strictly his duty, but Dewhirst often joined patrols led by a West Point classmate, Lt. Shane Oravsky. On the morning of July 20, 2008, he jumped into an empty Humvee seat in a six-vehicle convoy that drove three hours into a mountainous district that hadn’t been patrolled before. On a path through a mountain pass, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades started raining down on the convoy. A grenade blew through the rear hatch of one Humvee, killing Dewhirst instantly, Oravsky said. Dewhirst was 25.

Dewhirst was buried at West Point with a shard of his grandfather’s downed jet beside him in the coffin. Army officers up to the rank of general consoled his parents with tales of their son’s skill, drive and determination. At home, the support from friends, neighbors and complete strangers was astonishing and comforting.

But nearly a year later, it still hurts.

“I still have those moments of, I’m mad and it’s not fair, but he was over there by choice,” she said.

“And I miss him every day,” Susan Dewhirst said, her voice trembling through tears.

She was a little leery of today’s ceremonies, worried about feeling overwhelmed by grief in public. But she planned to continue the family tradition, even without Nick.

“We know Nick wouldn’t want us moping,” she said. “What’s hard for me is you wonder what he could have accomplished.”

ARMY RESERVE
SGT. DANIEL THOMPSON
Aug. 20, 1984 - Feb. 24, 2009
Grew up: Portage
Died: Kandahar province, Afghanistan
 

Daniel Thompson and his mother were almost inseparable. She was a single mother for half of his life, and he was her only child.

“We were very close,” Lisa Thompson said. “Only time he was at the baby sitter’s was when I was at work.”

She always tried to be honest with him, to let him make his own decisions and to let him see life, all of it, unfiltered. “He saw a lot and he learned a lot, and I just never sheltered him,” she said.

When he was halfway through his junior year of high school, he didn’t ask for her permission when he signed up with the Wisconsin National Guard.

“After 9/11, he just felt it was something he had to do,” she said. “He was 17. He signed up in December. I signed off for him and let him do it.”

That summer, he left for 10 weeks of basic training.

“I cried every day. I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital and be tranquilized,” she said.

They had never been apart for so long.

Starting in the second grade when he got his first detention slip, she was regularly called away from work to pick him up from school. He was diagnosed with ADHD and often defied his teachers when he disagreed with them or became frustrated.

Over the years, they had normal mother-son disputes. They came and went — but not the cigarette war.

When he was 9, he saw his grandfather, her father, suffer and die from lung cancer.

His mother smoked, but never in front of her parents, and never in front of her son. Still, her son would find her tobacco and hide it.

“He used to take my cigarettes with a magic marker, and draw sad faces on every filter and then write down the sides: ‘You’re killing yourself. If you loved me, you’d quit.’”

When she married her second husband, Bob, 12-year-old Daniel gave her away. Then, he joined the bride and groom on their honeymoon.

She lectured him on right and wrong but stopped short of ultimatums.

“I never forced him to do anything, and he never judged me for anything I did,” she said. “We were very close, which was important. It made him a good kid.”

“He told me everything. The child told me everything,” she said. “One day, he called me and said ‘I’m in trouble. Bob just went by and saw me skipping out of school.’

“I told him what do you mean? Wait a minute. He’s your dad, I’m your mom, why are you telling me? So, yeah, he trusted me with his life. He really did.”

He had a job with a security company and graduated from Madison Area Technical College in Portage with an associate’s degree in criminal justice and law enforcement. He got serious with a girlfriend and bought a house with her in McFarland.
Mother and son remained close. “We text-messaged each other every day all day long because he was in the back of that Brink’s truck and I was at work at my desk,” she said. “He’d tell me where he was because he had a route up this way. So, I’d go see him at his job. Just visit with him.”

During his six years with the National Guard, he went to training sessions on weekends and for a couple of weeks each summer. For the last two years of his commitment, he was in the Individual Ready Reserve. Last year, he was called up for active duty and sent to Afghanistan.

He was about 40 days from a two-week leave, and six months from the end of his deployment when, on Feb. 24, an improvised bomb exploded under his Humvee, killing him and four others in the vehicle. He was 24.

In addition to her office job with a shipping company, Lisa Thompson works a few hours now and then behind the bar in Gordo’s Bar and Grill in Portage. That’s where two Army officers found her.

“They had coats on, and I didn’t see the uniforms,” she said. “Guy walks in and says, ‘Can I talk to you?’ And well, yeah sure, I don’t care.”

It took her off guard, but she saw recognition and sympathy in the eyes of her regular customers.

“They knew. They know. The older men, they knew because they’d seen it before.”

In the weeks since her son’s death, Lisa Thompson has witnessed an outpouring of support from people she never met, from those who lined the roads when the funeral procession passed by, to the state legislators who invited her to a ceremony honoring her son.

Daniel’s bedroom, just off the dining room in the Thompson house, is neatly packed with photos, medals, certificates and memorabilia. Lisa Thompson has a short video he sent her that captured his laugh as he tried several times without success to fire a small rocket launcher. She has memories. And she finds comfort where she can.

“One thing I’m thankful for is that I’ll never have to do it again,” she said. “I don’t have any more kids, so I’ll never have to bury another kid. And that’s the only thing I’m thankful for.”