ST. CHARLES, Ill. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The father of a suburban soldier who was among the first to die in the war in Afghanistan said he's experiencing a lot of conflicted feelings about what's happening there today.
Jacob Frazier, of St. Charles, was the first soldier from Illinois to be killed in Afghanistan. He died in 2003 at the age of 24. He went because of 9/11.
His father, Jim, started supporting other families who lost loved ones in what would become a 20 year war. Today, he's thinking about the most recent to die there.
"Right now, there are 13 families that are having the worst day of their lives. Someone is saying to them, 'we regret to inform you.' So it is the beginning of a really horrible experience for those folks," Frazier said.
"If I try to put myself in one of those 13 families' shoes today, I would feel very, very bad, based on the idea that, here we are pulling out and my loved one is one of the last ones killed?"
Frazier is retired now, and his feelings are conflicted about what's happening in Afghanistan.
He thinks we stayed too long and should have seen what was coming.
He said someone asked him: 'do you think your son died in vain?' and he said, 'absolutely not, because you have to drill down the the level of the individual carrying the rifle.'
He blames the Afghan people for essentially giving up.
