GRANITE FALLS -- War came home to Granite Falls on Wednesday afternoon as a proces-sion of fire and police vehicles led a hearse carrying the body of Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Ryan Kahler.
Vehicles carrying teary-eyed family members rolled quietly by as hundreds of people lined the route through town.
Kahler, 29, was killed Jan. 26 apparently by friendly fire from an Afghanistan guard while on duty near Waygul, Afghanistan. Kahler was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regi-ment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.
The tribute to Kahler began earlier Wednesday in Willmar. American flags lined the sidewalk at the Willmar Municipal Airport, where the casket carrying Kahler was brought off a plane.
If anyone knew the danger that Matthew Kahler faced in Afghanistan, it was the soldier him-self, according to Ben Lecy. Lecy is a YME teacher who first met Kahler when he was in the ninth grade, and came to eventually know the young man as a close friend.
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Kahler was serving his third tour in the Middle East, having already completed assignments in both Iraq and Afghanistan before re-enlisting.
During his last visit home, Lecy said he and Kahler had discussed the soldier's willingness to go into harm's way. Lecy warned him that it was not a question of if, but when he would be shot.
"Yes sir, but I'm willing to do that for my country," Lecy said Kahler told him.
Kahler graduated from YME High School in 1997 and one year later married his high school sweetheart, Vicki (Streich). She and their 4-year-old daughter, Allison, had returned just one day earlier from Italy to join the procession and prepare for her husband's funeral.
The service will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Granite Falls Lutheran Church in Granite Falls. Public visitation will be held beginning at noon Saturday.
Memorials are preferred to a trust fund established in memory of Kahler. The fund was set up by his former classmates in the Yellow Medicine East class of 1997. Send contributions to: Mat-thew Kahler Trust Fund, Granite Falls Bank, PO Box 8, Granite Falls, MN 56241.
