The 27-year-old and his Utah Special Forces team were driving to Texas, their final stop before a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. The group popped in at the Butler family business here, Randy’s Auto, to say hello and meet their comrade’s parents.
“I promised them chocolate chip cookies if they would stop,” Laura Butler recalled Wednesday. ”I was so thrilled. We got to meet these men — the caliber of these young men? You feel it coming out of them.”
On Aug. 16, this same team of soldiers would be attacked by Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.