The Last American To Die In The Afghan War: ‘He Was Helping People’

Ryan Knauss was one of 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport on Aug. 26. He was initially wounded, and later succumbed to his wounds. According to a Pentagon official, he’s believed to be the last of the 2,461 U.S. service members who died in the war in Afghanistan.





Courtesy of the U.S. Army



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Courtesy of the U.S. Army

His widow, Alena Knauss, said she was the Army brat, living in various base towns as her dad transferred around. But Ryan Knauss was the one who wanted to be in the military since he was in elementary school.

«He never saw anything else for himself, Alena Knauss said. «He was one of those people that anything he wanted to do, he could have done, he was brilliant. But he just wanted to serve his country, it’s all he wanted, he thought that was the best way he could help people.

According to Pentagon officials, Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss was believed to be the last of the 13 U.S. service members to die after the suicide bombing in Kabul last week. That would make him the final American military fatality in the 20-year U.S. war.

The 23-year-old was a special operations soldier from eastern Tennessee. He was based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and a member of the 9th Battalion, 8th Psychological Operations Group.

Knauss had done a nine-month tour in Afghanistan in 2017 and 2018, as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, also based at Bragg. He had seen combat then, though mostly he mentored Afghan troops. That was what the main U.S. mission had become by that point in the war, having moved almost entirely away from direct combat.



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What We Know About The 13 U.S. Service Members Killed In The Kabul Airport Attack

Sent for the evacuation

This deployment to Hamid Karzai International Airport, though was different. It was all about helping American civilians and Afghan refugees get out. And there was nothing Ryan Knauss would have wanted to be be doing more than that, his widow said.

«That’s why he was where he was at the time, because these people needed the help, said Alena Knauss. «They had no other option. That was their only hope.

She thinks that even if he knew what would happen to him, he would have gone anyway.

«If he had a crystal ball, he’d do it again, she said.

The couple met working together at a pizza parlor when they were 15 years old, and began dating a couple of years later. After he wore down her resistance, she said.





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«If he had a crystal ball, he’d do it again, Alena Knauss said of her husband Ryan Knauss. «He was helping people, and if he was the last (American to die), I would be grateful that no one else would ever feel what I’m feeling.





Jay Price



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Jay Price





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Alena Knauss was tiling the floor after midnight, when two military members came to her home to tell her her husband had been killed in Kabul. She completed the project, which reads, ‘R and A 2021’ — for Ryan and Alena.





Jay Price



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Jay Price





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Ryan Knauss and his wife Alena Knauss met while working in the same pizza parlor as teenagers, and had been married five years.





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Courtesy of Alena Knauss



Politics
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Alena Knauss said her husband had been a history buff, and would have wanted to be remembered for helping others, for serving his country. And as a part of history.

He is now.

According to a Pentagon spokesperson, Knauss didn’t die immediately, only later succumbing to his wounds. That means he was likely the last American service member killed in the war.

«He was helping people, and if he was the last, I would be grateful that no one else would ever feel what I’m feeling, she said. «God, it doesn’t feel good. I’m in shambles and I’m hurting but to know that no mother, father, wife, brother sister ever has to feel such emptiness. I mean, the gravity of it, you know, I would be grateful to know he was the last.

The last of more than 2,400 U.S. service members killed in the war, along with more than 100,000 Afghan troops and civilians.