Oregon family shattered by Afghanistan bombing

Image courtesy: Family photo/The News-Review

Planting an improvised explosive device is not simply another wartime strategy. It is a cowardly tactic by terrorists who do not have the guts to fight our military head-on. As Sunday's tragic events in Ashoque, Afghanistan, remind us, roadside bombs also permanently alter families and leave children without mothers or fathers.

It is difficult to even write about Sgt. Josh Lengstorf while looking at the above picture. With a beautiful wife, child, and pet, this 24-year-old patriot had what appears to be the All-American life. And he earned it. The News-Review in Douglas County, Oregon, reports Lengstorf had already deployed to Iraq for eight months before his most recent assignment in Afghanistan. As the article explains, he only had four months to go in his deployment.

“What's kind of most upsetting is he was really establishing his new family,” [stepfather Chuck] Collins added.

Lengstorf married his wife, Jesse, a little more than a year ago, he said. The couple has a baby girl, Kadence, who is about 15 months old.

On Sunday evening, Jesse Lengstorf flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to meet her husband's body.

On Monday, Collins remembered Lengstorf as someone who loved life.

“He was a guy that loved football, hunting and fishing,” Collins recalled. “He was always ready to go. He wasn't the kind of person to be laying around. He's got to be doing something.”

Reporter Kathy Korengel explains that Lengstorf met his future wife all the way back in seventh grade in Elkton, Oregon. Jesse moved to Idaho, but would later reconnect with Josh online while he was deployed to Iraq, and eventually start a new life with him.

According to a blog written by Jesse Lengstorf, her husband loved playing computer games and liked rock music. She and her husband both liked working cattle, riding horses, camping and visiting the coast, she wrote.

Josh Lengstorf was honored by the Army with a promotion to sergeant shortly after his death. His widow will receive a folded flag at his burial, which young Kadence will look at throughout her childhood, along with pictures and videos, to remember her Dad. While knowing her father was an American hero will be an honor for the little girl as she grows up, she obviously will long to have her father by her side instead.

When learning of stories like this one, the tragedy of war is almost incomprehensible. What makes me angry is that our enemy lurks in the shadows, hiding in caves or behind innocent Afghan or Iraqi civilians, and comes out to plant crude bombs and shoot at our troops, like the attack that killed Lengstorf and two other brave men with families. While the void of these three fallen warriors will never be filled, we cannot run away from this challenge.

This ruthless enemy that attacks Americans overseas and at home on planes, military bases, and city streets must be stopped so children like Kadence Lengstorf can one day live free of terrorism.