Mom Shares Message She Received From Son, Who Was One Of 13 US Service Members Killed In Kabul

Paula Knauss Selph, the mother of one of the soldiers who died in the airport bombing during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, recalled her last message from her son in an interview with Fox News.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, 23, and 12 of his fellow United States service members lost their lives during a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.

The soldier’s mother said that she has spent every day for the past year thinking about her son.

“Ryan doesn’t leave me on any day,” Paula Knauss Selph told Fox News. If she could see him again, she said she would just want to hold him and tell him, “job well done.”

According to his mother, nobody was shocked when her son decided to enlist. His grandfather, who served in World War II, was one of many veterans in his family.

Paula Knauss Selph can still recall how her son’s favorite pastime was donning camouflage and running around holding a toy gun and walkie-talkie in each hand.

In the fields and woods near their Corryton, Tennessee, home, Ryan Knauss and his older brother Tyler Knauss would play army as they grew older.

“His dream, his heart, his purpose in life was to serve in the armed forces,” Paula Knauss Selph said, according to Fox News.

When he was old enough, a young Ryan Knauss persistently pursued a switch from private school to public high school so he could join the junior ROTC program.

Eventually, he brought home recruitment papers, and despite not being legally old enough he was determined to join, even if he had to become emancipated to do so.