Family paying tribute to Green Beret killed in Afghanistan

It was the first time Geraldine Pepper was visiting the grave of her son, Sgt. Brandon R. Pepper, during the Wreaths Across America event at Arlington National Cemetery. After the wreath was placed, she started to walk away.

A woman walked up to her and asked, “Are you Ms. Pepper?”

With an affirmative answer, Liz Franz of Upper Chichester introduced her to her daughter, Ava, who wears a jersey bearing Pep-

per’s name during games with the Chaos Fastpitch Softball league.

“Wow,” the Maryland resident thought, “he’s not forgotten. My son’s not forgotten and the other soldiers are not forgotten. Their names are out there.”

Franz explained that one component of the league is to have the girls do cultural things too. As a part of that, each player is given a jersey that displays the name of a fallen service member.

“They wear these jerseys when we play on Veterans Day,” Franz said. “They look beautiful when we do it.”

She herself likes to infuse meaningful events into her daughter’s life and as such, they’ve been participating in Wreaths Across America for the last few years.

“I like to get something in at Christmas time that she knows what the meaning is,” Franz said.

So, on Sept. 16, they went to Washington to put a wreath on the grave of the soldier on Ava’s jersey – Sgt. Brandon R. Pepper.

This time, when they approached the grave, someone told them his mother had just been there and they pointed the woman out to the Franzes. That’s when Liz Franz walked over to her.

“I can’t even explain the feeling,” Franz said. “We connected with her. We shared tears. It was amazing.”

As she did with the Franzes, Pepper shared the story of her son.

The second of her four sons, he was born in Ulm, Germany, where his dad was stationed in 1981. By 1999, he graduated from Kenwood High School in Maryland. A year later, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve.

After basic training, he was assigned to the 323rd Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Meade, Md. where he was an Intelligence Analyst. His first deployment was to Iraq in March 2003. There, he turned 21 years old.

In 2008, he entered active duty and attended Infantry Advanced Individual Training at Fort Benning, Ga. before being assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. A year later, he graduated from the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course at Fort Bragg, N.C.

A member of the Army’s Special Forces, a Green Beret, Pepper was assigned to Operational Detachment Alpha 3421, Bravo Company, 4th Battalion, 3d Special Forces Group as a Special Forces Communications Sergeant.

By 2012, he was serving in Ghazni, Afghanistan, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

On July 21 of that year he and three others from his company were on a mission in the middle of the night, according to his mom.

They were trying to find insurgents who were trying to plant explosives when the American soldiers went after them.

One ran into a building so the soldiers followed.

The first one who entered the building was shot seven times, Geraldine Pepper said.

“Brandon was shot twice in the chest,” she said, explaining that his bulletproof vest caught those. “Then, they shot the main artery in the top of his leg.

“They gave Brandon CPR and they shocked him with the paddles and they took him away on the helicopter,” Pepper said. “Once they got him in a stable environment, they declared him dead.”

As the first soldier who entered the building survived, Pepper said her son did what he was meant to do.

“As a mom, my son didn’t suffer. He was dead by the time he hit the floor,” she said. “When your job is done, God takes you. He saved the other three men’s lives.”

And he still helps others, his mom said.

“Brandon told me many years ago, ‘Mom, when you get older, you’ll never have to worry about a place to live, I’ll take care of you,’” she said. “The house I got right now, if it wasn’t for Brandon, I wouldn’t have it.”

After her father died more than 15 years ago, Pepper moved in to care for her mother who had dementia. After her mother died, she was able to use some of the insurance from her son’s death to buy a home.

For her, it’s important her son is not forgotten.

She recalls his love of sports, especially the Baltimore Ravens, and how he was one year away from getting a black belt in karate. She remembered how he had hoped to open a karate school.

“He had long legs,” Pepper said. “He had a beautiful smile. He was my only son who had dimples and the only one with blue eyes.”

He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with campaign star, NATO medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

Ever since he was laid to rest in Arlington five years ago, Pepper would get there when she could – on Brandon’s birthday, on holidays, Veterans Day, Memorial Day. She even met President Donald Trump there this year and got her picture taken with him.