Khizr Khan Asks Trump: ‘Would My Son Have A Place In Your America?’
Before terrorists attacked New York and Washington in 2001, Captain Humayun Khan had planned to leave the Army to attend law school. But 9/11 changed his plans, and in 2004 he traveled to Iraq to support the post-war effort there.
During a phone call in May of 2004, his mother urged him not to be a hero and to return safely. “Of course I will,” his parents remembered him saying. “But Mother, you should know I have responsibility for these soldiers, and I cannot leave them unprotected.”
Khan is buried at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia
A month later, Khan, 27, was dead.
While serving at Baqubah base, north-east of Baghdad, one of his duties was to inspect soldiers in the early morning near the compound’s entrance gate.
On 8 June 2004, an inspection turned deadly when a taxi sped towards Khan’s line of troops.
Acting quickly, he told his soldiers to step back and hit the ground as he moved towards the approaching car. He walked with his arm outstretched in a halt gesture for 10 to 15 seconds.
Just before reaching him, the driver detonated a suicide bomb.
The explosion killed Khan. But in blocking the vehicle, he succeeded in saving countless colleagues, including more than a hundred soldiers eating breakfast close to the gateway to the base.
Khan was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star – two US military honors.
He was buried in Arlington Cemetery, near Washington, in a funeral attended by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.