Sgt. Andrew Britton-Mihalo, a Green Beret, was killed on April 25 by a member of the Afghan special forces in Kandahar Province. (Courtesy of Lorena Mihalo)
Sgt. Andrew Britton-Mihalo, a Green Beret, was killed on April 25 by a member of the Afghan special forces in Kandahar Province. (Courtesy of Lorena Mihalo)
Lorena Mihalo with her son Staff Sgt. Andrew Britton-Mihalo, who was killed in an insider attack on April 25. (Courtesy of Lorena Mihalo)
Staff Sgt. Andrew Britton-Mihalo, 25Killed April 25, 20122nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
Lorena Mihalo doesn’t blame the U.S. military for the insider attack that killed her 25-year-old son, Staff Sgt. Andrew Britton-Mihalo.
“It’s not the Army’s fault something like that happened. It’s a part of war, I guess,” she said. “Traitors are a part of that too.”
Britton-Mihalo, a Green Beret, was slain April 25 by an elite counterpart with the Afghan special forces on a base the two sides shared in Kandahar Province. But those circumstances haven’t played much of a part in Mihalo’s grief.
“We just accepted it,” she said.
Britton-Mihalo’s father was a Marine, his stepfather served in the Army and his two half-brothers are also in the Army.
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which believes in eternal families, Mihalo said that her family holds tight to the idea that they will be reunited with him in the afterlife. They focus on that faith instead of his death.
Regardless of how he died, “I would have felt the same,” she said. “It’s just my son is gone. It’s been devastating.”
