G’BYE TO

Widow’s final kiss for soldier

THE PREGNANT widow of an Army sergeant killed in Africa said a final goodbye Saturday to her hero husband.

Sgt. La David Johnson’s wife, Myeshia, dressed in white and wearing her high school sweetheart’s dogtags, sobbed as she whispered one last private word.

She held a U.S. flag in a triangle fold and touched her lips to the chrome-colored casket.

The couple’s 6-year-old daughter, Ah’Leeysa, and 2-year-old son, La David Jr., sat nearby.

The heartbreaking reality of the loss was still far from settled in for many of Johnson’s relatives as the somber scene played out below an overcast Florida sky.

“It hasn’t hit me yet. I haven’t had time to grieve,” said Johnson’s sister, Angela Ghent, after a funeral service at the Christ the Rock Community Church in Cooper City, Fla.

Johnson and three other U.S. soldiers were killed in an ISIS ambush in Niger two weeks ago.

A photo of the 25-year-old soldier in the church was accompanied by pictures of Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, 35, of Puyallup, Wash.; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, 29, of Lyons, Ga.

The four died Oct. 4.

“We have to remember that one thing: that it wasn’t just one soldier who lost his life,” Berchel Davis, a retired police officer who has six children in the military, told The Associated Press.

He said the preacher and Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) both spoke about all four service members at the funeral.

“That was a good gesture on everyone’s part,” Davis added.

Wilson, a close friend of Johnson’s family, has been embroiled in political back-andforth with President Trump over a condolence call he made to Myeshia Johnson.

Trump, who spent Saturday at his Virginia golf resort,