JOSHUA WOLFSON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 12:00 am
In many ways, he came back the same old Brandon Foster.
He still loved pranks and breaking trucks as fast as he could fix them. He lived life with the pedal pressed firmly to the floor, whether it was jumping his pickup or fishing with friends.
But in those 88 days after he returned from Afghanistan, his family noticed changes, too.
The man with the gruff exterior and big heart had begun to find his place in the world. He and his girlfriend, Janelle Charles, talked of marriage and buying a home. He was helping raise her young daughter, Sydni, who he affectionately called "Baby Girl."
The war was behind them. Those 88 days offered a glimpse of the possibility that lay ahead.
Tragically, it was never realized.
On the 88th day, Brandon died in a car crash caused by deer on the road. He was 23.
The loss is terrible for family and friends, especially since it comes soon after the relief of his safe return from war. But mixed in with the sorrow are the happy memories of a man who lived his life, as his father described it, at 120 mph.
"He has seen more than we've ever seen," said Brandee, his younger sister. "He had done a lot more than a lot of 80-year-olds have done. Every day was a new day for him to go and do something new.
"I come home and want to relax. Brandon comes home and wants to do this or that. There was never, I mean never, a dull moment."
High-energy kid
Kim and Bill Foster brought their eldest son into the world on April 29, 1984. They almost lost him three weeks later.
The new parents were driving with their young son when their car collided with a cow. Though buckled in, Brandon Foster flipped and hit the dashboard, then the floor.
It scared his parents, but amazingly the infant came through the experience unscathed.
"So we got extra time with him," Kim said. "In all due rights, we probably weren't supposed to have."
Brandon was a high-energy kid who was riding a bike by 18 months.
"When he learned to walk, he ran the next day, it seemed like," his father, Bill, said. "He was always going."
His love of trucks began early. As a youngster, he'd take apart toy trucks and put bigger tires on them or rub the paint off Matchbox cars and then repaint them with fingernail polish.
"When he got older, he'd run around and take pictures of trucks," said his grandmother, Mary.
Brandon Foster grew up in Gillette, with three younger siblings: Brandee, 21, Brett, 20 and Brad, 18. Brandon had an affinity for the outdoors and all things mechanical. He learned to fix cars by helping out his dad, holding the flashlight while his father worked.
Brandon might have been well-equipped to fix trucks, but he seemed equally adept at damaging them.
"I used to get so furious at Bill because he'd let him take the truck, and every time it came back, there'd be something wrong with it," Kim recalled.
He never seemed to miss an opportunity to go off-roading. His uncle, Daren Bulow, recalled how, for an English class, Brandon built a ramp, then got someone to videotape him driving his truck off it.
"I have never met anybody like him," Bulow said. "No fear."
In the Army
It wasn't until after he graduated from high school in 2002 that Brandon Foster considered enlisting in the Army.
"Gillette's not big enough for you. You got to get out and see the world," Bill told him. "The best thing for you to do is join the service."
Brandon joined in February 2003, and after basic training, was stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., as part of the 10th Mountain Division. Fittingly, he worked as a mechanic.
David Trembly met Brandon at Fort Drum and considered him like a brother.
"It was never boring with him around," said Trembly. "No matter how bad the situation, he was always making the best of it."
The two men shared the same interests, hunting and trucks among them. Trembly recalled coming along with Brandon as he test drove a truck and managed to get it airborne. In the process, a fire extinguisher in the pickup went off and the cab filled up with white powder.
"He was always my crazy buddy from Wyoming," Trembly said. "I don't know quite how to put it into words. He was definitely a prankster. He had a rough exterior. But he was definitely a nice guy. If you were in a bind, you knew he'd come help you."
Brandon had a gruff demeanor, but friends said he was also someone who could be incredibly giving.
"He was one of the best friends I ever had," said Frank Prine, who served with Brandon at Fort Drum and in Afghanistan. "There is probably not going to be another person like that who I'll meet."
While still in the states, Brandon and some of his friends got tattoos, marking their arms with the letters TR - for Team Redneck.
Brandon was more than just a platoon jokester. The other soldiers considered him one of their best mechanics, someone who did what it took to get the job done.
"We all looked up to him for his wrenching abilities," said Dustin Hall, who met and worked with Brandon in Afghanistan. "He really knew his stuff."
'This guy was funny'
In December 2005, Brandon met the love of his life. But it would be another nine months - while he was on leave - before they would meet face to face.
That December, Janelle Charles was living in Cody but planning a move to Gillette. She logged onto a popular social networking site, MySpace.com, and found Brandon's profile.
Two photos intrigued her. One showed him burning out the tires on his Ford Mustang. Another showed him goofing off in a pink jacket.
Janelle decided to send him a message.
"I just though this guy was funny," she recalled.
In January, Brandon left for Afghanistan, but the two stayed in contact through the Internet. At first, things were casual, but as their correspondence continued, the two began to develop feelings for one another. Soon they were e-mailing and chatting online each day.
"I asked him, 'What's going on here?'" she said. "He called it 'Sleepless in Seattle.' We just kept going from there. The more we talked, the more serious it became."
Afghanistan
Brandon volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan early, figuring that since he had to go, sooner was better than later. The friends who served with him said Brandon seemed to be without fear.
One time, a truck got a flat during a firefight and Brandon changed it with a crescent wrench and a vise grip, even as rounds landed near his head.
"The whole time I was over there, I didn't notice he was scared," Prine said. "To me, he pretty much laughed about everything overseas."
Despite the distance, he kept in touch with his family. From Afghanistan, he arranged to have flowers sent to Brandee for her 20th birthday.
"It just broke my heart," she said. "He's fighting for all of us … but he thought about my birthday. That's how he was. He always cared about people."
Brandon's family said he was extremely proud to be a soldier. Brandee once asked her brother whether he believed in what he was fighting for.
"That doesn't matter," he replied. "I'm there for the soldier to the left of me, and the soldier to the right."
Homecoming
Brandon Foster returned to the United States on May 20. His mother didn't put down the phone that day until she heard from him.
"We were waiting all day for the phone call," said his brother, Brett.
In July, Janelle flew out to meet him in New York, and a few days later, the young couple drove home to Wyoming to start their lives together. He got a job at the Rawhide Mine, and they discussed getting married.
"His family says I'm the wife without a ring," Janelle said.
Brandon took care of Sydni as if she was his own child. They started to bond when he was still in Afghanistan, making funny faces at one another via Web cam. Back in Gillette, he took her on outings and taught her to change tires.
"He is the only father my daughter has ever known," Janelle said. "He loved that girl."
Sixteen months in Afghanistan changed him. His family noticed he had matured and begun to settle down - at least a little bit. It wasn't the he stopped doing the things he enjoyed before Afghanistan, he just brought others along for the ride.
"Instead of doing those wild and crazy things on his own, we did it as a family," she explained. "He was definitely all about enjoying every moment of every day. And it just worked that my life and Sydni's life fell into what he liked to do."
Brandon's mom also noticed the change. She so looked forward to the years ahead.
88 days
Eighty-seven days came and went. Then on Nov. 15, 2007, it all ended. After surviving a war half a world away, Brandon died in a freak car crash less than 30 miles from his home, when his friend, who was driving, tried to avoid deer on Interstate 90.
Suddenly family and friends, who only recently celebrated his safe return, were mourning his passing.
"He just got home from Afghanistan," Kim said. "He is supposed to be safe."
Brandon was buried with military honors on Nov. 19 in Gillette. His army buddies traveled from across the country to be there. Prine, who manned the gun turret of Brandon's Humvee, even went AWOL so he could attend his friend's funeral.
When he was overseas, Brandon's sister Brandee would have nightmares where she saw his coffin draped in the American flag.
"And that was one of the hardest parts, was the reality that our nightmare came true, even though he wasn't at war," she said.
Live those dreams
A month later, tears still fill Kim Foster's eyes as she talked about her son. But she can't help but smile some times, remembering some misadventure or damaged truck.
"He lived life so full," she said. "He was always going, making people laugh. You could be so mad at him, and he'd smile and say, 'gotcha Momma,' and some of the things he did, you couldn't help but laugh."
As for Janelle, she will remain in Gillette. She and Brandon hoped to live happily there, with good jobs, close to his family. She still wants to do that, although now it will have to be without him.
"The hardest part for me is the whole time we talked, we always talked about the future and what we wanted and what we were going to do," Janelle said. "And now I'm left to live those dreams without him, when I waited so long to have our dreams and do what we wanted to do."
Reach Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@trib.com.