Nearly one week since Philadelphia’s Democratic National Convention saw Khizr Khan speak emotionally and eloquently on his late son’s behalf, the fallen soldier’s memory continues to be honored by those that knew him well.
“He was the most incredible man to work for,” recalled Laci Walker, who served as a sergeant under Army Capt. Humayun Khan. “You always knew what he wanted.”
In June 2004 a suicide bombing in Baghdad cost Humayun Khan, 27, his life. Now, more than a dozen years later, his name has been thrust into the national spotlight following comments by his father denouncing Donald Trump.
Walker suspects it’s attention her former commander would have shied away from.
“They say rest in peace for a reason,” Walker told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin Tuesday. “He was a soldier. He was a man. He died honorably. He didn’t die because he’s a Muslim.”
Though Khan’s faith has become a large part of the political narrative in the days following his dad’s speech, Walker instead remembers the man who was always at the ready with an emergency meal when unrelenting duty led to grumbling stomachs.
“If we had to work through lunch, he’d always make us all tuna fish sandwiches. He was very kind, all the time.”
So kind, and such a dedicated leader, in fact, that Walker proudly inked her body with a tattoo in his honor. To Walker, Khan was a man who embodied patriotism and heroism, irrelevant of religion or ethnicity.
“He didn’t wear his heritage on his shoulder,” Walker told Baldwin. “He wore the American flag like all of us did.”
