Soldier Was Known for Kindness, Loyalty

After the rifles sounded and taps were played and more than 100 mourners were driven away from Arlington National Cemetery yesterday, Sgt. John K. Daggett's father, who had stayed behind, stepped across the grass at Section 60 and rested his face against the dark wooden casket.

Daggett, 21, whose family called him Kyle and whose football and Army buddies just called him Daggett, died May 15 after a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle in Baghdad. It was his first Iraq tour.

Jack Daggett stood up and walked past the headstones as workers pulled over plywood to make a path for a backhoe. He then returned to his son's grave site and started shoveling, lifting soil into a plastic bag before stepping back for good.

"He's still my little brother," said his sister, Kendall Daggett. "He's still just Kyle, without any title or anything like that." Among high school friends, she said, "I was 'Daggett's sister.' I don't have a first name. I'm just 'Daggett's sister.' "

On a hike two summers ago at Fossil Springs, in Payson, Ariz., her brother hiked down the steep, rocky trail to bring her along in the July heat. "He just made me feel way better, like it was okay, and that I was going to make it," she said. Soldiers sent the family messages after he was killed. They said Daggett had helped them, too, such as when he encouraged them through a 12-mile run.

"It was actually really cool to see that. I know that's how Kyle was, but to have guys write that," she said. "He had the most amazing heart for other people, and it just continued and continued and continued."

Daggett's loyalty showed in the way he treated those around him, she said. He babysat for his old sitter's children, making cookies and carving pumpkins. He volunteered at a nursing home in Arizona and did the same in Sadr City.

"They sent him all the time into Sadr City, right behind the wall where the fighting was really, really bad," Kendall Daggett said. "He would go volunteer because that was how he is. I was like, 'Oh my God, you're volunteering.' "

Weeks before he passed away, his sister said, Daggett had spoken to a loved one about seeing a soldier get killed. "He had run over to try to help, and there was nothing he could do," she said.

Daggett, of Cave Creek, near Phoenix, died in Halifax, Canada, two weeks after he was injured. Daggett joined the Army along with friend R.J. Mann. It was Daggett's senior year in high school.

Daggett had earlier considered joining the Marines, but after talking with his parents had decided instead to become a firefighter. But he and Mann became captivated with the idea of becoming part of the Army's elite group of Airborne Rangers.

"They were thinking they were going to be brothers in this, and everything was going to be okay and they would be together in this whole thing," Kendall Daggett said. They'd take the money and study to be firefighters when they got back. "That was their plan of action," she said.

Daggett wore glasses, something the recruiters noticed. "They told Kyle they were going to give him Lasik eye surgery, and obviously that didn't happen," Kendall Daggett said.

The two were stationed separately, with Daggett sent to Iraq and Mann to Afghanistan. Mann flew in for yesterday's service, which, for some, felt too abrupt. Some relatives said they were hurried away from the burial site. "The somewhat ironic thing was he went into the Army on June 2 and he was buried on June 2," Kendall Daggett said. "I don't know how to take that."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.