Nate DeTample can be described as small in stature but with a big personality. He was a high school wrestler and an Eagle Scout.
His mother Kim says, “He was a wrestler, and he was dedicated to the wrestling team. He wanted to be a police officer”…like his father. He was a real community related person. So he grew up respecting, you know, he used to always say God bless America. Yeah, he was really patriotic.”
Kim DeTample is soft spoken, sincere and has an inner strength to deal with the worst thing that could happen to any mother.
Nate joined the Pennsylvania National Guard in high school. His brother joined soon after and made the military a career. “It’s not something we made our children do. It’s something that they chose on their own. So Nate joined and finished his basic training between his junior and senior years in high school. After he graduated, he finished his training in Fort Benning.”
Nate went to Shippensburg University and joined the ROTC program. He was called up as a mid-tour replacement at the end of his first semester in January, 2005. He would join his unit already in Iraq.
”I went to pick him up (at school). His friends all said goodbye to him. Yeah, I told them I’d bring him back, but he never went back.” I asked if Nate was afraid. “He never seemed like he was afraid, but the interesting thing was he packed up his entire bedroom before he left. He knew where he was going. But I never imagined. He knew what he was doing, even though he was so young. They called him “Baby Face.”
Nate arrived in Iraq in May, 2005. He was killed on August 9, 2005 when an IED (Improvised explosive device) exploded under his Humvee in Baiji, Iraq. Nate and three of his fellow soldiers died. One soldier survived.
“I remember. It was 6:14 in the morning on August tenth. We were away and hadn’t talked to Nate in a couple of days. We spoke only a day or two before he was killed. And there was a knock on the door, and I thought who’s knocking on the door? And I opened the door…there was a man in full military uniform there. I’ll never forget. I said, it’s not good. He said, ‘no Ma’am it’s not.’ And that knock changed my life. It changed our whole family’s life. Yeah, my Mom, his grandparents, his dad, his brother and sister, and it changed our lives forever. In a way, I never thought it would.”
I asked what she thought Nate’s life would have been like. “I wonder if he’d be married. If he’d have children. Sure, if he would have finished college…become a police officer. I always think of where would he be today? I think of it a lot, but I always look up at the sky and him smiling down, and you know saying, ‘Mom, I’m up here as much as you don’t…” her voice trailed off.
Kim married young. She became a Gold Star Mom at 40. Many of the Moms found it hard to believe she was so young to have lost a child. I asked how she got through the twentieth anniversary of Nate’s death this past August. “I usually visit his grave. I take nice long walks in the woods because he loved rock climbing. I have my moment. I still have every letter he sent me. I still have the last birthday card he ever gave me. And I still read it every year on my birthday.”
Kim’s other son Staten served two tours in Afghanistan and daughter Vicky is married to a member of the Coast Guard. They both have children of their own.
“I love my kids. You know I love them all. And I think the one thing I said to my children that breaks my heart is that they’ll live with this longer than me.”
I asked if Kim thought about trying to stop Nate from enlisting. “I couldn’t stop him…the hardest thing to do as a parent is to let your children make choices. He knew it was hard. He knew it was hard on us, you know. But it’s something he wanted to do.”
Kim has done a few things with the Travis Manion Foundation which reaches out to help veterans and their families. She talked of going to Atlanta to do community work. She said, “We went to the city of refugees and I worked with children, being a teacher and we did Meals on Wheels. We prepared meals.” Kim has accompanied two groups to the 9/11 Memorial. “Every one should do it because it’s a way of remembering. It really is.”
When people in the community asked what they could do to help Kim and her family, she said donate money to the Pennsbury Scholarship Foundation at Pennsbury High School where Nate went. There are now three scholarships in Nate’s name. Kim is a volunteer board member.
Kim met the surviving member of Nate’s Humvee crew Dan South. “And we invited him to our house because I wanted to tell him to live his life to the fullest. Survivor’s guilt is a lot, and I didn’t want him to have that.” A true act of compassion and empathy that should inspire us all.
The story wasn’t over. In 2013, Kim got a call. “I got a phone call when I was home from teaching. It was a reporter who asked, “How do you feel?” Kim said, “Well, what?” She didn’t know what he was talking about. The reporter told her they caught the two terrorists who planted the IED that killed Nate and his fellow soldiers in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They were shipping arms and money back to Iraq. The FBI traced fingerprints on the IED to the terrorists. One was living in Bowling Green as a war refugee. They both pleaded guilty. One was sentenced to life in prison and the other to forty years.
Dan South, the surviving soldier of the attack on Nate’s Humvee said, “It’s still amazing. I think it’s incredible that they were able to do that. I kind of wish we could have smoked him when it happened, but we didn’t have that opportunity. So I guess this is second best.”
Kim has empathy for others who have suffered a loss like no other. “I always say God has a way of smiling down to let me know he’s up there in heaven. And you know, that I can give people a hug and tell them that there’s people who care and want to hear their stories. That’s part of what I do and what I feel I want to do and support people.”
Kim ended our talk by saying, “It’s been quite a journey.” It’s a journey no one wants to take. Kim has gone down that road with grace, dignity and courage. Nate would be very proud of her.
Leave a Reply