He went all the way

You don't have to have been there to know the boy in the picture is enjoying what he is doing. The smile on his face tells the story.

The boy is Darren Howe, who died last week from injuries suffered in Iraq. The newspaper picture was taken 15 years ago, when he was a kindergartner at Cedar Elementary School in Beatrice.

Howe's class was drawing pictures for servicemen who were in the Persian Gulf preparing to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

“I love you,” Howe wanted to tell the soldier.

Teacher Alvera Bade remembers the project and the student. It doesn't surprise her that Howe would still be making the extra effort to help people. She and others who knew him remember Darren as someone who always wanted to be on the side of good.

“I think he would be concerned for other people, and try to help them out and do what he could to befriend them,” Bade said.

Howe died last Friday from burns and other injuries he suffered when an improvised explosive devise hit the vehicle he was driving in Samarra, Iraq, on Oct. 17. On Wednesday, family members gathered at the Beatrice Public Library to tell reporters how he lived.

Even as a child playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he always wanted to be a defender of good, his wife Nakia said. She recalled a conversation she had with her husband several months ago, shortly after his first confirmed kill. Her husband was disturbed. He hated being in Iraq, but believed in the mission, she said.

“He didn't want to be there, because he had a family,” she said. “But he knew it was his job, and he had to do what was right. He wanted to give them the freedom that we have today.”

Howe's interest in the military began at an early age. His father Steve Howe of Emporia, Kan., recalled Darren and younger brother Brandon playing Army when he took his sons on camping trips. As he grew older his interest matured, and he enlisted in the Army reserves on Sept. 10, 2001. In one of their last conversations, Darren told his father he wanted to try out for special forces.

“He couldn't see it, but on the other end of the phone, his dad's chest was swelling with pride and admiration,” said Steve, who shared some drill weekends with his son as a reservist. As he sat by his bedside at the Brook Army Medical Center in Texas, Steve told Darren he was one of the bravest men he knew.

JoDee Klaus of Beatrice, Howe's mother, said she signed the papers allowing Darren to join the reserves just days before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I knew then that my worst fears would be coming true,” she said.

But Darren's mind was made up. He left for basic training in the summer of 2002, just before his senior year at Beatrice High School. Kelly Meyer, who directed Howe in the BHS concert choir, said he remembers talking to Howe about his plans for a military career.

“I know he had a plan. He was very determined to make a career in the military, and he was very excited about it,” Meyer said in an interview with the Beatrice Daily Sun.

So determined, in fact, that he tried unsuccessfully five times to get active duty status after he graduated high school. He finally made it, Nakia Howe said, after enlisting the help of state Sen. Dennis Byars. He told his father he wanted to sign up for duty with military police or infantry.

“If he was going to be in the Army, he wanted to go all the way,” the elder Howe said.

Darren's sense of duty extended to his two children Shay-Maleigh, 3, and Gary-Dean, 1. He believed his military service was not only a means to provide for his family but a way to make the world they grew up in a better place, his wife said.

“He wanted to give his daughter a life. He wanted to give her things that we couldn't have when we were growing up. He was a loving dad. He gave her everything that she needed. He was the best dad I've ever seen in a young man.”

The day before he left in January, he told his wife to take care of his children and his mother. That's the way he was, family members and teachers say, thinking of others first. He was the type that looked out for other people. Howe sustained more severe injuries when he went back into the burning vehicle and pulled other soldiers out. An official report has yet to be completed, Mrs. Klaus said, but army personnel told the family that the other soldiers wouldn't have survived without Darren's help.

Funeral services for Howe will be at 11 a.m. Friday at St. John Lutheran Church, with burial to follow at Evergreen Home Cemetery. The Beatrice Chamber of Commerce is encouraging members of the community to gather on Court Street as the procession makes its way past. U.S. flags in the city will also be flown at half staff.

Meanwhile, other members of the community will remember him in other ways. Meyer said the BHS choir will dedicate a medley of patriotic songs to Howe at its concert tonight (Thursday).

“Everyone's still a little shocked about what happened,” he said.