The first female U.S. Air Force Academy graduate to die in the U.S. counter-terror campiagns in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Jew, fell in the line of duty last week in an insurgency attack in Afghanistan.
Air Force 1st Lieutenant Roslyn Schulte was traveling from Kabul to Bagram Airfield when her convoy passed a roadside bomb. She was killed instantly.
Schulte, 25, was based at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii before she was sent in February to Afghanistan. She served in military intelligence and was involved in teaching Afghan army officials how to gather and interpret information from the field.
Hundreds packed into the synagogue Monday for her funeral in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, Missouri.
Rabbi Mark Shook led the service at Congregation Temple Israel, telling mourners, "No one in this place will ever take Memorial Day for granted again."
Schulte, who was due to return to the United States in August, instead was buried in a south St. Louis County cemetery to the sounds of a military 21-gun salute. Forty members of her Air Force unit stood at attention silently at her graveside, as the tears of her parents and older brother mingled with the pouring rain.