‘It was a message people should hear’

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Jim Huffman stands with his son, Kylan Jones-Huffman, after swearing in his son at the U.S. Naval Academy following his graduation in 1994. Jim Huffman stands with his son, Kylan Jones-Huffman, after swearing in his son at the U.S. Naval Academy following his graduation in 1994.

A father shares his fallen son’s thoughts

If you’ve attended a Memorial Day service at the American Legion in Pagosa Springs in recent years, you’ve likely heard retired Army Lt. Col. Jim Huffman read a portion of emails his late son, Kylan, wrote on April 28, 2003, while serving in Iraq.

What you may not know, however, is who the man behind the emails was.

Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman, as his father put it at his memorial service in 2003, was “a friend and colleague, a cousin, a nephew, a brother, a son, and a husband.”

He was also a voracious learner and someone who thought critically about his country and his, as well as everyone else’s, role in his country.

He also shared those views with his father, as well as several other Army colonels whom Jim shared the emails with at the time. Jim and the other colonels in the group were all Vietnam veterans.

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