The officer’s attention was constantly drawn to an iPhone that had a cartoony, angel-winged ted carry on its case. The telephone was stashed in the wardrobe of a rear room in what amounted to a lost-and-found bag at a remote , U. S.  , military island in the Jordanian plain.
Staff Sergeant  , Zachary Winthers , of the , Illinois Army National Guard , had been stationed since last summers at a basic known as Tower 22. He was in charge of ensuring that soldiers had access to daily needs, food, and sleeping accommodations in the “mayor’s cell” of the installation. The position was a gathering point, also, for unclaimed items.
The inquisitive phone was first noticed by Winthers as he cleaned up. It had been there, he figured,” for God knows how long”. He was particularly bothered by it for the majority of the nine month he spent it. No one seemed to understand where the mobile came from.
He wanted to charge it, switch it on, and find out who it was. But no one had the right charging wires. And it wasn’t as though he could roll through and purchase one there between Syria and Iraq.
Winthers posted periodic emails to his colleagues: Hey, we found a telephone. Check if it belongs to you.
The mobile should not have been hard to recognize. Its case had an” Angel Bear” affect case under the Casetify brand. Its side bore a illuminated teddy bear upright in puffy sky, clutching a tiny spirit that read,” Really Do You”. The support reads,” I Don’t Care!!” in beefier display. What You Think of Me, Baby”.
You’re the principal character in your life, it says below that in smaller kind. … Focus your vitality on making yourself happy”.
The phone was still unused as the deployment of Winthers approached its close in April.
” It felt like one’s personal device”, Winthers, 29, may say. ” Telephones have thoughts,” says the saying.
Before he shipped out, he had an plan. He obtained permission from his first lieutenant to return the telephone and start using it.
” If anything”, the first lieutenant told him, “it’s like a fine Samaritan”.
Winthers remarked,” If someone found my phone, I do want someone to attempt to try to return it in any way.”
* * * **
About six weeks before Winthers arrived in the plain, Iranian-backed insurgents attacked Tower 22 on the day of , January 28, 2024, about six weeks earlier.
A helicopter bombed the camp. Three Army servicemen from Georgia and  were killed: Sgt. Breonna A. Moffett, Sgt., and Savannah, Sgt., respectively, William J. Creeks, Sgt., Carrollton, and Sgt. Kennedy L.  , Sanders,  , 24, of , Waycross. More than 20 additional soldiers were hurt.
The event marked the worst attack on American support people since the , U. S.  , pulled out of , Afghanistan , in 2021. Citizens ‘ deaths, according to their position, were severely affected. Their burial made front-page reports.
Smith ‘ families were particularly open to news writers.  , Shawn Sanders, her parents, and , Oneida Oliver-Sanders, her family, opened their house and answered their devices, telling all who cared to talk about their daughter’s career.
Joe Biden, the president, called the nation to show his sympathies.
Kennedy Sanders, in her home of 14, 000 people at the edge of the , Okefenokee Swamp, had been a striking soccer, softball and baseball person. She enrolled at Valdosta State University, which she afterwards left, and later joined the Army resources.
While house and between operations to , Africa , and the , Middle East, she worked as a volunteer group sports manager. She worked for the local elections company, a store, and Lowe’s, where she won employee of the year in 2022.
After the resources, she dreamed of a job in imaging.
The Army shipped her belongings house in the weeks that followed her demise. Her shoes arrived, her dog keywords, also, which her father jewels. Additionally, specific outcomes were delivered.
But something was not sent.
Her phone
* * * **
The blast had hurtled Kennedy Sanders ‘ brain onto the ceiling of the bedroom where she slept.
Her telephone was undoubtedly gone, it was said. The Army told her parents as many.
Her parents recalled that she “was upset.”  , Shawn Sanders, a previous Marine, wanted his mother’s images, her pictures, her video. They gave her more to consider her.
Phones are where our electric devices and our characters merge. Even the most bizarre of apps, ours sort of are. They’re personal publications in every style, image and emoji imaginable. Digital mementos of our life, or 3D journals, are what they are.
There were days Oliver-Sanders needed new photos of her child. Her mother was obsessed with a picture of her in her tomb at times in the weeks following Sanders ‘ death. Oliver-Sanders sat and stared at the image. Occasionally all time.
” In disbelief”, she said.
For Shawn Sanders, the days following his sister’s passing felt like he was, as he put it, “underwater.” Then, he said, some times come with tears of joy. Sometime it’s just real pain.
But yet since before Sanders ‘ death, her folks have found satisfaction in their hometown’s accept.
Oliver-Sanders remarked,” It’s an enormous sense of honor and respect for our child and for our home.” ” People do seem to us as the case for grieving kids”.
The road in front of their home has been given the new name Kennedy L. Sanders Way. A painting of Sander gazing out over , Tebeau Street , from the front walls of Kings Washerette features a beautiful American flag and a giant eagle clutching a Purple Heart.
She greets and refers to her late girl by the name Oliver-Sanders whenever she travels past the painting. ” Hey, Munch”, she’ll say, which is short for” Munchkin”.
Oliver-Sanders gathered craft supplies as this Memorial Day approached.
Oliver-Sanders, a previous longtime associate of the , Ware County Board of Education, collected lots of sheets of colored construction paper, her mother’s favourite colour. For a task Smith attended as a child at Ruskin Elementary in Vermont, Oliver-Sanders packaged them in plastic bags with copies of Sanders ‘ photographs, as well as a few of his own son’s tags and glue-on stars.
” Kennedy Kits”, they’re called. Children are encouraged to create nationalist, framable drawings.
” A lot of children don’t understand what , Memorial Day , is and what it means”, Oliver-Sanders said. It’s a way to highlight what the subject matter is really important.
On a recent night, the Sanderses showed up at another college, this one on the fringes of , Waycross.
The pair sat backstage during the fourth-grade’s honors time ceremony at Waresboro Elementary during the ceremony to provide the Sgt.  , Kennedy L. Sanders Real Hero , Award. A baby at each grade level who behaves, performs well, and is sporty and reliable earns the distinction.
The fourth-grade champion was a blond-haired boy whose professor described him as someone who” regularly goes out of his way to help people. A real friend to everyone who usually has a head start.
As the white-ribboned prize medal was presented, along with$ 25,  , Shawn Sanders , shook the boy’s hand and teared up.
* * * **
Zach Winthers was in his relatives ‘ house an hour or so after supper on May 6th.
Winthers had arrived household to , North Aurora, Illinois, in mid-April.
His next overseas assignment was his second to Jordan . He had joined the military at time 19 after graduating from , Kaneland High, a university surrounded by meadows about an hour north of downtown , Chicago.
He said,” I’m a simple guy.”
He studies science at the , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received some of his Army education in Augusta and close to Augusta in Georgia.
Winthers likes trekking, camping, boating, fish. He refers to himself as” a treadmill rat.” He’s into power education. He enjoys playing” Magic: The Gathering,” a card-based battle between wizards and spells. He’s a big” Lord of the Rings” fan. He wants to work in investigations, possibly for the FBI or CIA.
On that evening early this month in his mother’s house earlier, the secret cellphone he had brought house from , Jordan , was charged.
He activated it. It had a passwords. Locked. But when Winthers tapped the camera’s emergency connections, they opened.
He learned the name of the camera’s user, Kennedy Sanders, but it wasn’t clear to him who she was until he remembered her. Sure, he had seen a monument at Tower 22 with her name on it, but he hadn’t been at the bottom next. The title didn’t ring a bell.
The camera’s links were all names. The first two are” Papa Bear” and” Mama Bear.” Winthers assumed they were Smith ‘ families. Phone numbers were next to each name.
Winthers, on his own telephone, typed in the number next to” Mama Bear”. Its location script was 912.  , Southeastern Georgia.
The telephone rang.
Oliver-Sanders answered.
Winthers inquired if she knew Kennedy Sanders, who he was, and who he was. ” Does this name sound familiar”?
Oliver-Sanders was cautious about what might follow, saying,” That’s my child.”
She asked how Winthers got her range.
” Mama Bear…  , Papa Bear…  , …” read aloud the titles of the incident links.
” That’s her phone”, Oliver-Sanders said.
She was enthralled.
Winthers, still conscious of who , Kennedy Sanders , was, asked her mother if Sanders was still on active duty and if he might message her cellphone to her.
Oliver-Sanders informed him that a drone attack had claimed her life.
Winthers ‘ chest sank. He was shocked and felt terrible. As soon as Oliver-Sanders told him, he remembered. He pondered,” Oh, my gosh, that’s best.”
He offered his sympathies and explained how he came to have the telephone. He had no idea, though, how it made it to the lost-and-found bedroom, unharmed. No one does.
In the kitchen, the caller’s father, mother, and girl were listening in the background. They were silent. What are the odds of being successful? they wondered. This is” surreal.”
The next day, Winthers shipped it to , Waycross.
Eventually, Shawn Sanders wrote,” It couldn’t be delivered quickly enough.”
* * * **
A while ago, a colleague of Smith stationed at Tower 22 sent Sanders ‘ parents another smartphone. Basically, two devices.
They’re games. Making Strapping devices using Campbell’s Dish bottles, Breonna Moffett and Sanders and .
” That’s how tired they were out there”, Oliver-Sanders said.
While her sister’s phone was being delivered from , Illinois, she informed some of Sanders ‘ other soldiers, or “battle friend,” that it had been located and that it had been successful.
As a sensible family might, she asked if there was anything she does, um, steer clear of reading.
No, they responded. ” All you’re going to do is laugh”.
When he learned the phone was recovered, Moffett’s father, Bernard, joked with Shawn Sanders, saying,” Be careful, man, you might see something there you don’t want to see,” and Bernard has since come to know Sanders ‘ father.
When the smartphone arrived and the Sanderses turned it on, a comparative advised them of the passwords, a variant of her , June 1999 , delivery time.
Smith and her kids ‘ videos were on the phone, images that her family had never seen or perhaps would never have seen.
” She recorded everything”, her family said. You are aware of this technology. They report everything”.
There were flashes of her daily life. Her cutting up with companions. Her being herself. Her being the child they raised her to remain.
” That means something to me. It’s more than a gift”, her father said. Yet our viewing of her was unheard. She was a nice girl”.
It was sort of a gate.
They saw the last communication she ever sent, part of a three-way talk with Moffett and another friend at the bottom:” I can’t wait to go to Pin when we get home”.
There was a picture of her and Moffett playing with those dumb toy telephones.
” Now”, Oliver-Sanders said,” I can look at her phone and see video of them actually making them”.
The Sanderses even read suddenly about keeping the program when it came to rising the ranks and getting promoted.
” It’s a modern-day miracle”, Oliver-Sanders said of the phone and Winthers ‘ efforts to return it. ” Thank God he thought long enough to bring it up and not just keep it there.”
Other than his home, Winthers has told only a couple of persons about returning the telephone.
He said,” I don’t like to boast.”
There was one last movement, nevertheless.
He also sent something else to Smith ‘ families. Something they are proud to share.
Some of Sanders ‘ crossword puzzle and sudoku books, a mood board, and other items from her bag are kept in a curio cabinet at their home.
And, yes, it’s in there with those toys soup-can devices. With justification. It’s a card with a handwritten a communication from Winthers about her pretty true phone:
” I’m so sorry that it took so long for her phone to get back to you,” she said. Please understand that returning it to you was very important to me, and it was an honor to do so. Her devotion, service, and remembrance will never be forgotten.
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