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 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