Browsing: Ian McConnell

Some of you may remember the blog post I wrote last month about Sgt. Ian McConnell, a friend of mine that I met last year in Marjah, Afghanistan. McConnell killed himself on July 4 with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, shocking friends and family alike. His family decided to go public with his story through this blog in hope that it might help someone else. Through this ordeal, I’ve had the luck to get to know Ian’s sister, Meg. Last night, she shared that she has been writing about her brother’s death on her blog, On the Homefront. A recent excerpt…

This is one of the hardest pieces of journalism that I’ve written in a long time. As it appears online, the family members of a friend of mine — Sgt. Ian McConnell, 24 — are traveling today from Camp Pendleton, Calif., to his hometown in Woodbury, Minn. They’re preparing for his funeral at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, a U.S. cemetery in nearby Minneapolis. It’s common that when a person dies with most of his or her life seemingly ahead of them, friends and family create online memorials. Ian is no different. His sister, Meg, posted one on Facebook over the…

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