More than a hundred friends remembered Staff Sgt. Shane M. Koele, of the 212th Military Police Company, during a memorial service Wednesday on Harvey Barracks in Kitzingen, Germany. Koele was killed in Shindand, Afghanistan, when his vehicle hit an anti-tank mine. (Mindy Campbell / Courtesy of U.S. Army)
KITZINGEN, Germany — Staff Sgt. Shane Koele hardly ever yelled. If one of his troops crossed him, they knew it by the look in his eye.
This noncommissioned officer had a soft spot for his guys. Once, he spent four hours helping a young private find his keys — even though he’d lost them twice before.
“He was loved by his soldiers. They wanted to be just like him,” said Capt. Jess Traver, rear detachment commander for Koele’s unit, the Kitzingen-based 212th Military Police Company. “He was a talented trainer who always got the best from his soldiers because they knew he would always be there for them.”
Koele’s friends and fellow soldiers gathered Wednesday at the Harvey Barracks chapel to remember the popular NCO, one week after he died of injuries suffered in a mine explosion in Afghanistan. He was the first military policeman killed in Afghanistan, said Sgt. Maj. Louis Barnes of the 793rd Military Police Battalion, the 212th’s command unit.
Koele, 25, grew up in the farm village of Hartley, Iowa. In high school, he excelled in football, basketball and track before graduating in 1998.
“He was an excellent leader, a natural athlete,” his mother, Mary Donnenwerth, of Hartley, told an Associated Press reporter. “A lot of kids thought of him as a role model.”
Koele attended Northwestern College in Iowa and Wayne State College in Nebraska before enlisting in the Army in 2000.
He joined his first unit, the 300th Military Police Company of Fort Riley, Kan., in securing the Pentagon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and later spent six months in Iraq before transferring to the 212th MP Company in late 2003. Promoted to staff sergeant last fall, he was the top graduate in his Basic Noncommissioned Officer Course three months ago.
Koele left Kitzingen with his unit March 8, kissing goodbye his wife, Cheryl, and 4-month-old daughter, Kiley Ann. He left behind videotapes of himself reading bedtime stories for his little girl and reassured them he’d be safe because he was “10 feet tall and bulletproof,” Cheryl Koele told the Des Moines Register newspaper in Iowa.
“We had a short goodbye because he’s the type that doesn’t want to make things harder,” she told the paper. “We went outside, he took Kiley and held her a little bit and set her in the car seat. He talked to her and kissed her and cried. He didn’t want to leave.”
Koele was badly wounded March 15 when his Humvee hit a land mine apparently left over from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. His armored Humvee reportedly was rushing to help a crew that had gotten stuck in a muddy road near the town of Shindand in western Afghanistan. He died the following day.
Four other soldiers were wounded by the mine.
“His life was short,” Traver said in his eulogy Wednesday, “but his impact on his soldiers and his unit was immense.”
In addition to his wife and daughter, Koele is survived by his parents and two sisters. He will be buried Friday in his hometown.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
