Mourning comes to a town called Comfort

A COUPLE of miles along Highway 87, just past Comfort High School, a collection of seemingly random objects lies on a blanket beneath an American flag inscribed with the name James Kiehl.

James, 22, was killed on March 23 when his team of mechanics, cooks and supply clerks from the US Army’s 507th Maintenance Company were ambushed on their way to repair the computers on a Patriot missile launcher near al-Nasiriyah in Iraq. He is survived by his wife, Jill, whose first baby is due on May 4.

His friends in Comfort, a tiny town of 1,200 residents, a petrol station and a few antiques shops, have built an impromptu memorial to him using some of his favourite things. There is a water melon, a packet of crisps, a bottle of Coke, a model Corvette, some softball gear, a Reader’s Digest Nation of Heroes book and a baseball marked: “Thank you for protecting our and mankind’s liberty — God Bless You and may you rest in peace.”

The memorial began two weeks ago, when a yellow ribbon was tied to the “Welcome to Comfort” sign after James, a computer engineer, and his team were declared missing in action. Since then it has grown by the day as visitors come to add their own objects and messages of condolence.

The two weeks between James’s disappearance and the confirmation last Friday that his body had been found in a shallow grave were an agonising hiatus for James’s father, Randy Kiehl, and his stepmother, Jane.

“We did not know whether he was alive or dead. The army wouldn’t tell us anything, so I took matters into my own hands,” said Mr Kiehl, sitting in his study beneath more than a dozen pictures of his son alongside just as many certificates and trophies marking his achievements at school and in the military.

“I set up the satellite receiver, two telephone lines, the cell phones, the internet. I looked everywhere I could and spoke to dozens of people to try to find my son.”

He eventually found a video on the internet that confirmed his worst fear. The images were so gruesome that he would not let his wife see them.

What Mr Kiehl found was a section of an al-Jazeera video showing the bodies of soldiers from the 507th. One of them, although his face was obscured, was unmistakably James Kiehl, his father says.

“You see, he is 6ft 8in and a pretty big fellow,” Mr Kiehl said, “and you notice the little things about your children. I saw that little patch of fur he’s got growing out of his belly; just like mine. Then I was pretty sure it was him.”

Mr Kiehl does not regret his son’s decision to go to war, and still supports the campaign in Iraq as vehemently as he did before James was killed.

“Me and James had a father-son chat before he left,” Mr Kiehl said. “I said: ‘Son, you’re 6ft 8in — you make sure you dig that foxhole 7ft deep.’

“And James said something to me that was rather profound. He said: ‘Other people around the world think we are spoiled and greedy Americans. But what they need to know is that we are rich in our freedom, and I want to go share that with the Iraqis’.”

Mr Kiehl, who works in a factory that makes the meals ready to eat military ration packs and is a veteran of the US Army, is confident that he passed on enough knowledge of the Armed Forces to his son to prepare him for the worst.

He recalls his son’s enthusiasm and community spirit, which he believes would have helped in the battlefield. “He played trumpet in the high school band, he played basketball, he would help out with everything. And always fixing stuff. He loved being a computer engineer.”

The Kiehls’ front yard is littered with half-built motorcycles and bits of engines, remnants of the projects James worked on with his father.

Jason Liefesten remembers that James, his best friend, was always thinking up crazy pranks, such as the time he abseiled out of a dormitory window while on a trip with the school band. “We were supposed to be in bed. Boy, we got our butts chewed for that one,” he laughed.

Mrs Kiehl is proud that James, whom she had raised since the age of 12, fought and died for his country.

But she said: “I do worry sometimes about what might have been different if I hadn’t told him when he was growing up that joining the army would be a good idea. I do worry about that.”

Carol Howland, James’s natural mother, did not speak to her son for about eight years before his death, the Kiehls said. She will not be invited to the funeral.

James’s wife, Jill, is with her parents in Iowa, waiting for her husband’s body to be released. She is 8½ months pregnant with a son, James’s first child. They had been married for 18 months.

Mr Kiehl said: “Another thing he said to me on our last day was that he did not want his son to be raised in fear of terrorism. We are proud he has made sure of that.”

The baby will have a special gift from his father, which James prepared before leaving for the Gulf in case the worst should happen. He bought three teddy bears; one for him to take away, one for Jill and one for the baby, who is to be called Nathaniel, a name chosen by James.

Nathaniel’s bear has a tape inside with James’s voice recorded on it. “Daddy loves you,” it says.

Mr and Mrs Kiehl travelled yesterday to the Centre Point Cemetery, near their home, to buy a plot of land in which to bury their son. “We bought a place for him, one for Jill next door, one for the two of us and two for Jane’s parents. Something like this makes you plan for the future,” Mr Kiehl said.

Centre Point is not a military burial place, as James told his wife before he left for the Gulf that if he died he wanted to be buried somewhere more personal. But in Centre Point Mr Kiehl believes that he has found somewhere worthy of being the final resting place for his son. “There are 33 Texas Rangers buried in Centre Point: more than anywhere else in Texas,” Mr Kiehl said. “He’ll be in good company.”

I hope those sorry bastards in France and Germany read this article. They will never understand why real Americans like James are gladly willing to to pay such a price as this.

Especially to contrast how much different the citizens of Comfort, Texas whose ancestors immigrated to Texas from Germany in the 1850's, are from the Germans of today.

Handbook of Texas Online: COMFORT, TX

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COMFORT, TEXAS. Comfort, the second largest town in Kendall County, is located at the junction of State Highway 27, U.S. Highway 87, and Interstate Highway 10, sixteen miles northwest of Boerne on the county's western edge. The town was laid out near the site of an Indian village in 1854 by Ernst Hermann Altgelt,^qv though its history goes back to a group of Germans from New Braunfels that settled in 1852 along the banks of the Cypress Creek above its confluence with the Guadalupe River. Freemasons, freethinkers, and political activists, middle-class German families, and liberals from Bettina and Sisterdale settled the area. Townsmen organized the community along cooperative lines and steadfastly opposed formal local government. Comfort opened a school shortly after its founding, but not until 1892 was a church built. The town was a center of Union sentiment during the Civil War^qv and lost many young men at the battle of the Nueces^qv in 1862. A monument on a hillside across from the high school campus honors these dead. From 1856 until Kendall County was organized in 1862, Comfort competed with Kerrville to become the county seat of Kerr County; Kerrville won.
Early agriculture and commerce in the area depended on sheep and goats, grains, lime burning (see LIMEKILNS), masonry, building rock, lumber, and shingles. In the 1940s and 1950s, when the Hill Country^qv was an international wool and mohair center, Adolf Stieler of Comfort reigned as "Angora Goat King of the World." In the 1980s agribusiness continued to dominate the local economy, but hunting, fishing, sightseeing, and youth camps drew increasing numbers of tourists.
Much of the original townsite is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Significant architectural sites include Bolshevik Hall, Turner Hall, a theater, and numerous half-timber and Victorian structures that survived a disastrous flood in 1978. A tradition of secular funerals was still widely observed in the twentieth century, and German turner (see TURNVEREIN MOVEMENT) activities and modern Volksmarsch celebrations continued. A local museum, volunteer and mutual aid organizations, and service and literary clubs provided informal governance. The population of the unincorporated town was over 1,400 in 1980, when the post office, established in 1856, still existed. In 1990 the population was 1,477.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Guido E. Ransleben, A Hundred Years of Comfort in Texas (San Antonio: Naylor, 1954; rev. ed. 1974). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Glen E. Lich

Recommended citation:
"COMFORT, TX." The Handbook of Texas Online. <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/hjc16.html> [Accessed Mon Apr 7 17:57:44 US/Central 2003 ].

The Handbook of Texas Online is a joint project of The General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin (http://www.lib.utexas.edu) and the Texas State Historical Association (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu).
Copyright ©, The Texas State Historical Association, 1997-2002
Last Updated: July 23, 2002
Comments to: comments.tsha@lib.utexas.edu

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