From the tarmac of a Michigan airport Aug. 28, Karen VanDreumel saw her son Joseph return from Afghanistan draped in an American flag as his family’s hero.

Two weeks ago, this moment had seemed far away for the assistant in the English department’s writing program. Before that, she never really expected this day would come.

But as she watched her son’s casket exit the plane, she finally understood the news delivered to her doorstep in the early morning hours two agonizing weeks earlier.

“It made it real — seeing him finally come home,” VanDreumel said.

In mid-August, Joe VanDreumel became one of the 1,766 casualties in Afghanistan since U.S . forces deployed there nine years and 11 months ago. But in the wake of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, VanDreumel says it’s her son’s life they’ll be celebrating — along with the sacrifice of a hero.

‘He was a challenge’

Joe was curious as a kid. So curious that one day, his mother had to pick him up early from school after he attempted to flush his foot down a toilet.

“I got a phone call one day: ‘Miss VanDreumel , can you bring a pair of shoes and pants for Joe?'” she said. ‘I asked, ‘Why?'”

In particular, Joe always wanted to figure out how things worked.

“He was curious, always was,” VanDreumel said. “He’s always been mechanically inclined.”

His natural spatial skills made the military attractive to him since high school. But after Joe was laid off from his job as a machinist, he decided to join the Army to become a mechanic in January 2010 at the age of 31.

“Even with the good job he was still thinking about it all — to serve his country just like his grandpa did,” she said.

Members of the VanDreumel family are no strangers to war. Her father was a wounded World War II and Korea veteran, and her husband is a former Navy chief who served two tours in Vietnam. Even Joe’s paternal grandfather served in both World War I and World War II.

“Our family has had relatives in the military ever since the Revolutionary War,” VanDreumel said. “It’s almost been every generation.”

After boot camp at Fort Knox, Joe, his wife and two young children, moved to their new home in Grafenwoehr , Germany, in August 2010. Because of that extra maturity, according to VanDreumel , Joe said the Army was the place for him.

“Joe felt very at ease in the Army,” she said. “While we were visiting him in Germany in June, he told my husband, ‘I found a home.'”

Morning callers

Two months after that visit,the doorbell woke VanDreumel at 5 a.m . A chaplain and a sergeant from Fort Bragg were at the front door.

“I was upstairs and my husband had opened the door and I saw them,” VanDreumel said. “I knew.”

The men came to bear the news that their son, a corporal in the 172ndInfantry Brigade, died Aug. 14 while serving in the Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan.

“It was all a blur after that,” she said. “I can’t even recall the names of the chaplain and sergeant. It was surreal.”

Although no stranger to the recoil of war, said she never saw this coming.

“You know the danger’s there — but you just think it happens to someone else,” VanDreumel said.

On the ground close to the Pakistani border, Joe was working as a mechanical specialist recovering damaged or destroyed vehicles and restoring them. When an improvised explosive device injured soldiers on patrol and disabled their Humvee Aug. 14 outside a small, nearby base, Joe and Sgt . Matthew Harmon headed out to recover the wreck.

“They got out of their vehicle and they had transported the four other guys from the Humvee into their vehicle,” VanDreumel said. “They were going to secure the Humvee to put it on the flatbed when a secondary IED went off.”

The explosion, verified by the autopsy at Dover Air Force Base, caused blunt force trauma, killing both VanDreumel and Harmon.

As a mother’s worst nightmare came to realization, VanDreumel said she does not blame Joe or herself for the tragedy.

“I wasn’t upset when he first joined,” VanDreumel said. “I’m proud of him.”

Casualty assistance

On Aug. 24, the VanDreumel family returned to Germany. Uniting them there again was no small task, according to Capt . Jamie Davis. As the VanDreumel’s causality assistance officer, he’s one of the soldiers who helps the families of fallen service members by arranging service members’ homecomings and funerals.

“It’s a whole team, deployed by the Army. We have different responsibilities throughout,” Davis said. “Joe’s from Michigan, his family lives in North Carolina and Germany. It was quite a bit of work to make it all function — but it did.”

Davis said he treats the death of every soldier like he’s losing a brother

“A loss is shared by everyone. It’s shared by the family and as well as the Army,” Davis said. “We’re a big family and we want to help out everyone we’re connected to.”

Like the brothers in arms they were, Joe and Harmon’s belongings sat next to each other during the service.

“They had their boots, their weapons, their dog-tags and then their helmets, and they had them side by side on a stage,” VanDreumel said.

Welcome home

As his casket rode into his former hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich ., a fleet of motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard escorted Joe to Rosedale Cemetery. VanDreumel said rows of residents lined the roads, holding American flags and signs saying, “Thank you, Joe.”

“It made you feel like that what he was there for,” VanDreumel said. “Like that was his purpose or his calling — that freedom is not free.”

She said her memory of Joe will live on through his selfless impact on friends and family. Only by sharing that impact, she said, will she truly continue the “healing process.”

“A lot of his brothers he was stationed with in Germany called him ‘big brother,'” she said. He was a role model. He was a patriot. He was a hero.”