Outside VFW Post 1782 in White Bear Lake, flags are at half-staff.
Inside, there’s a memorial to honor Master Sergeant Nicole Amor, killed in Kuwait on March 1.
“It’s never easy having a loss of life, especially in the military,” says Jayme Frogner, a former Army National Guard medic who served in Iraq and Kuwait.
She’s also a mother of two, and is thinking about Amor and her family.
“Having someone that’s local and knowing that family is going to be majorly impacted by this and leaving behind two children and a husband, my heart breaks for them,” Frogner added.
On Saturday, Amor’s remains, along with those of five other U.S. soldiers, were returned to American soil at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in a solemn, dignified transfer.
Amor’s husband, her mother, and her fourth-grade daughter were there to witness her return.
“It’s hard for us to accept the fact that one of ours had that happen to her, the very first shots of the war, so to speak,” says Jerry Briggs, a Korean War Veteran and a White Bear Lake resident. “That’s what’s tough.”
Amor, 39-years-old, was assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, which provides food, fuel, ammunition, and other supplies to American troops.
She and her fellow soldiers were killed in a drone attack, just days before she was supposed to come home.
“The sad part was she had such little time left over there,” Briggs notes. “That was what really got me. Kuwait was a staging area for Iraq. There was nothing going on in Kuwait. Now, all of a sudden, there’s rockets going into Kuwait.”
Now, Representative Bjorn Olson (R-Fairmont) — a Major in the U.S. Army Reserve — is proposing several plans to permanently honor Amor.
“Not only did we lose a great soldier in the United States military, but we also lost a fellow Minnesotan, we lost a mother, we lost a wife,” he says. “Just really want to surround that family with love. That’s what we want to do.”
Olson hopes to honor Amor with a resolution to be written into the House record about her service and sacrifice.
He is also working on a plan to name a Minnesota highway or roadway after her, in remembrance.
“What can we do to honor and remember her forever?” Olson asks. “That’s the focus of what we’re attempting to do. What small part can we play to make sure she’s not forgotten?”
Amor’s family says she was passionate about growing things.
They’ve launched a crowdfunding effort to build a greenhouse in her honor and raise money for Garden-in-a-Box, a nonprofit that distributes gardening kits.
“They have a GoFundMe that’s got nearly $75,000 in it right now, that’s going to create a foundation,” Olson explains. “A greenhouse for her, to forever memorialize her sacrifice.”
Amor’s family has not yet released funeral plans, but it’s believed she will be laid to rest at a location in Minnesota.
Never forget — and never forgotten — as White Bear Lake, and Minnesota mourns one of its own.
“I think anything that brings her family some semblance of peace after this,” Frogner says. “Like I said, she was young, she’s leaving behind young children. Anything that helps them with a semblance of peace, I fully support.”
