The first Starke County casualty of the war in Afghanistan will have his name enshrined on the courthouse war monument. A stone mason was working on the Afghanistan portion of the granite monument yesterday.
Specialist Robert Tauteris, Jr., 44, of Hamlet died in Afghanistan on January 5 after his truck was struck by a roadside bomb.
Hundreds of people attended his funeral in the Braman and Bailey Funeral Home. The services were attended by Governor Mitch Daniels, who at the podium called Tauteris, “all a state could hope for in a citizen.”
To date, 1534 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers. Since the start of the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 15,950 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action according to the Defense Department.
