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’.”

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