Courtesy of the Feehan Family and Claire Fletcher
On July 18, 2026, First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan was killed in action during an Iranian missile attack in Jordan.
He was 25.
His death, the 16th American fatality since the war’s outbreak, made headlines. But the real Tyler wasn’t in those stories. The real Tyler, who grew up in Marietta and spent Saturday mornings riding on a lawn mower with his grandfather, was full of life. It’s the breathing, laughing, Ted Lasso–loving Tyler that his parents and fiancée want the world to see. That’s the man they lost. The one whose memory pounds in their hearts, fills the air around them, and makes him seem a text away.
He clicked on the story. Iranian missiles and drones had struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, where American air-defense soldiers were protecting U.S. forces and installations from Iranian attacks.
Stephen glanced at his wife, Shari. He had a sick feeling deep inside. Their only child, Tyler, had deployed to Muwaffaq Salti a year before with the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
Frantic, Stephen and Shari began scouring their phones, searching for text messages from Tyler. “Please let me know you are okay. I love you,” Shari wrote to Tyler. “Your dad and I are cuddled terrified right now. Can’t wait to hear you and hug you. Can’t wait . . .”
They contacted his fiancée, Claire Fletcher. Tyler had texted her less than an hour before the time of the attack.
“I love you,” he’d told her.
Stephen decided to sleep downstairs on the couch that night, and at 4 a.m., he was awakened by the front doorbell. He peered into his security camera and, not seeing anyone, decided to go back to sleep. The bell rang again. This time, he looked more carefully at the camera and saw eight men standing at his gate; one was an officer in everyday Army uniform.
“Is this Steve?” the officer asked. “Can you come down here?”
Stephen, a retired Army major who had moved to Italy to do civilian military work, knew that casualty notification officers arrived in their dress blues. So when he approached the front gate of his condo building, he assumed the military police was after him, perhaps for a traffic ticket. He scanned the group of men standing across the courtyard. That’s when he spotted them. Two men in formal Army uniform.
“Is it Tyler?” he asked.
They nodded. Stephen let out a shriek and called upstairs to his wife.
“Shari, it’s Tyler.”
At first, Shari misunderstood him. She thought Tyler was on the phone. She looked out the window, saw her husband standing in the middle of the courtyard, and urged him to come back inside.
“No, Shari,” Stephen said. “It’s Tyler.”
Stephen then heard the casualty notification officer utter the words that form the nightmares of all military parents: “The secretary of the Army has commanded me to express his deep regret that your son, First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, was killed in action . . .”
After that, everything turned black.
A final journey
Hours later, Stephen and Shari were driving across Italy to Milan, where they boarded a Delta flight—the first one they could find—to carry them to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, to the son they raised and loved.
The son who 25 years ago was born weighing 8 pounds 2 ounces and measuring 24 inches tall, the longest baby ever born at the hospital in Taylorsville, Utah (a sign that one day he would stand 6 feet, 5 inches tall and tower over most people). The son whose initials, TJ, made for a likely nickname except that Shari hated the sound of it. Instead, he became Tivo, though no one can remember exactly why—only that it was cute. The son whose parents took him on every vacation because he was so much a part of their lives that they could not bear to leave him behind. Not even for a few days.
Now that son, who loved to travel and had visited 40 countries, had made his final journey back to the United States. Stephen and Shari sat in a private family area at the Center for Families of the Fallen at Dover, awaiting the “dignified transfer” of their son. When he arrived, President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth saluted as Tyler’s body was carried off the plane to the mortuary.
Claire joined Stephen and Shari at Dover. There, they met the family of Private Isabella Gonzales, killed in the same attack on the military base in Jordan. It was emotional meeting Isabella’s mother; her daughter, after all, had died with Tyler. She was 19. So young. Stephen and Shari felt grateful that Tyler had lived his 25 years to their fullest.
He was not an ordinary young man; he had never been an ordinary kid. That is probably how a lot of parents describe their children, but Stephen and Shari knew it to be truer than true for Tyler. He was smarter than his peers, and from a very young age, he had been fiercely independent. Some of it had to do with the fact that he was an only child, and he learned quickly to be his own best friend. But a lot of it was his upbringing.
The Iraq war erupted shortly after Tyler was born, and Stephen, then a young Army specialist, deployed with his unit, leaving behind Shari and Tyler, then 18 months old. “It was really hard on [Tyler],” Shari recalls.
Stephen deployed to the Middle East two more times. Tyler missed his father so much, he named a plastic toy dinosaur after him. “Everywhere we went, he carried Dinosaur Steve around with him,” Shari says. “I think that was kind of his way of keeping his dad close.”
Tyler was four or five years old when Shari began putting together Lego sets with him. It was their mother-son time to talk when Stephen was gone and her way of getting him to open up about all the things he might have kept inside. Soon, Legos became something of an obsession. The family bought enormous Lego sets—the Eiffel Tower, the Titanic, the Taj Mahal—and Tyler never outgrew them. Just before he died, he had ordered a new Batman Lego set, which arrived a week or so later at the house he shared with Claire in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and broke her heart all over again.
Tyler did most of his early schooling in Richmond Hill, the south Georgia town near Fort Stewart where his family lived for a while. But when Tyler was in third grade and Stephen deployed again, Shari and Tyler moved to Marietta to live with Stephen’s parents in their suburban brick colonial. Tyler went to third grade at Addison Elementary School and grew close to his grandfather, Benjamin Feehan. They were, as Stephen phrased it, “thick as thieves.”
Ben took his grandson for rides on his lawn mower, and they frequented the neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts for sweet treats. “That was their go-to,” Stephen says.
Shortly before Tyler deployed in July 2025, he visited Ben, who was in the hospital, battling lung cancer. Tyler made sure to stop by Dunkin’ and pick up doughnuts on his way. He loved chocolate glazed ones with sprinkles on top; his grandfather’s favorite were the crullers.
And when he left for Jordan, he brought along a cutout of Grocery Ben, the cartoon he had drawn of his grandfather, who had once worked as a manager at a Publix grocery store. Tyler took photos of himself with Grocery Ben everywhere—in his office, on his bunk, even on his rocket launcher—just as children take Flat Stanley with them on their adventures, and sent those pictures to Stephen.
Photograph by Dustin Chambers
“A flawless, perfect person”
At Dover, Trump made it a point to meet Stephen and Shari, who learned the president was on his way to Marietta’s Wheeler High School for a planned rally later in the day. The Army had arranged for a flight to Utah for the Feehans, since that was their last U.S. address. But Shari and Stephen were on their way to Atlanta.
They had always considered Georgia their home—Stephen grew up here—and they wanted to bury Tyler in the city he loved. He had grown up going to Braves and Falcons games. His childhood bedroom was blanketed in red-and-black Falcons fan gear, from the bedsheets to the trash can. Even though the Falcons always seemed to come up short, Tyler never gave up on them. The plan was that after he retired, he would take over the team.
“I’ll get ’em straight,” he told his dad.
Without a chartered flight, Stephen and Shari would have to wait all night to board a Delta flight the next day. Stephen decided he would “throw it out there” that they, like Trump, were headed to Atlanta. That’s when Trump offered them a ride on Air Force One, which landed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, not far from Wheeler High and Ben Feehan’s house.
“It was a really nice distraction,” Shari says, adding that Trump seemed genuinely interested in learning more about Tyler.
At Wheeler High, Trump recognized the Feehans during the rally and called Tyler “a flawless, perfect person,” a moment that made the rounds on social media. Shari texted the clip to Tyler. Both she and Stephen still talk to Tyler through texts. Every day.
“He would have thought that was hilarious,” Shari says.
“Oh, he always used to joke with us that he was the universe’s gift,” Stephen says. “He would have just thought that was so funny.”
After the rally, Stephen and Shari hunkered down with family in Marietta. Then came another blow.
Photograph by Dustin Chambers
So many plans
It was almost as though Ben had been waiting to die until his son returned from Italy. Six days after Tyler was killed and two days after Stephen and Shari made it back to Marietta, Ben passed away. The family hadn’t told Ben about Tyler; it would have been too much of a shock. But now grandfather and grandson are together in heaven, Shari and Stephen like to think.
“[After Ben passed], I told him he had a special visitor waiting for him on the other side and that he’d see Tyler soon,” Stephen says.
He and Shari then had two funerals to plan and attend. Stephen had two very different obituaries to write. At 75, Ben had lived a long life. But Stephen and Shari couldn’t stop thinking about all the things Tyler would never get to do. In the days after his death, they began mulling over the pieces of the life he had been building.
He had hoped to enroll in law school and was keen on Vanderbilt University. He wanted to open a family real-estate business one day. Every year since he was a boy, he made an annual list of things he wanted to accomplish. The categories changed as he grew older: finances, character, family, career, personal goals. But the premise stayed the same: Decide where you want to go. Build the foundation. There are no shortcuts in life.
His 2025 list was handwritten in black ink. Personal goals: “Get in shape . . . Do something new every week . . . Start LSAT/MIS prep . . . Save half of paycheck . . . Read/listen to one new book every month . . . Volunteer more . . . Go to flight/mixology school; pending deployment; also motorcycle.” Shari and Stephen shook their heads in disapproval over that last item.
Tyler had always been savvy about money, and his financial goals included looking into buying his first investment property, reading one to two articles a day related to stocks, establishing a travel fund, and filling out the worksheet from investment-advice company The Motley Fool. He was only 22 when he bought his first house and dazzled the loan officer with his knowledge of mortgages. His financial acumen was so great, his commanders often called on the young lieutenant for stock tips.
The fascination with finances began when he was eight or nine. He announced he didn’t want toys anymore for his birthdays; he wanted silver coins. And a safe to put them in. From then on, family members presented young Tyler with American Silver Eagles. With the price of silver hovering near $70 an ounce these days, Stephen figures Tyler’s safe is worth close to $100,000.
Courtesy of Claire Fletcher
Young and in love
Tyler’s aspirations included something else far more important than money. He had met Claire Fletcher through the online dating site Bumble while training cadets at Fort Knox in Kentucky. The first time they saw each other in person, he sat with her on a bench at Louisville’s Seneca Park, looked at a group of guys running football drills, and said, “Those guys are definitely not making it to the NFL.”
That one sentence launched a conversation that lasted more than six hours. He loved sports; she did not. Yet the two talked until well after the sun had gone down—about their lives, their families, their dreams. They both knew they’d found their special person. They were inseparable from that moment on.
“Sometimes you meet someone and it feels like your souls have always known each other,” Claire, 23, says.
Claire moved in with Tyler when he was stationed at Fort Still in Oklahoma, then moved with him to North Carolina when he was stationed at Fort Bragg. He called her “Little Hooman” because she’s five-foot-two. He, of course, was “Tall Hooman.” They lived with their two dogs. They took a lot of road trips. And they did things like watch the animated children’s program Bluey together because Tyler thought it was terrific. Claire bought him a stuffed Bluey toy for Christmas. She placed it in his casket before he was buried.
On his 2025 goal list, Tyler wrote that he wanted to find more time to connect with Claire and cook together four times a week (he loved butter chicken).
Before he left for his deployment, Tyler drew a picture on a whiteboard on the fridge door. It showed a couple sitting on a park bench, in love. “Until we meet again,” he wrote. “This isn’t goodbye. Simply see you later.”
Photograph by Dustin Chambers
“It all got jacked up.”
During his deployment, Claire and Tyler spoke and texted every day, except when he had no access to the internet. They were planning to marry by the end of the year. They both loved being with family and thought it would be fun to take Claire’s sister, her parents, and Shari and Stephen along on their honeymoon. First week, to Greece. Then on to Africa. Stephen and Tyler would climb Mount Kilimanjaro while Claire, Shari, and everyone else would stay in a five-star resort at the base of the mountain and relax.
They talked about having children. Soon. Maybe when Tyler was in law school. Claire felt confident in their future, but she still sometimes asked Tyler if she should have a Plan B or Plan C. Just in case he changed his mind. But he always reassured her: She didn’t need to think about any other options because he was not leaving her. Ever.
She says she considered herself “extremely lucky” to have the rest of her life figured out at such a young age. “Now it’s all just vaporized,” she says. “I wish we had gotten our wedding day. Our home. Our children. All the ordinary Tuesdays that people take for granted. I would have loved every single one of them with him.”
Shari and Stephen, too, had thought a lot about the future, about leaving an inheritance to their son and, eventually, their grandchildren. They wanted to buy a retreat in Blue Ridge where all the extended family could get together. “Unfortunately, there will be no grandchildren,” Stephen sighs. “It all got jacked up.”
Even so, Claire says she has no regrets. “If I had the choice to do it all over again—even knowing how our story would end—I would still choose Tyler. Every single time.”
Photograph by Dustin Chambers
A military man
Shari and Stephen never doubted their son would follow in his grandfather’s and father’s footsteps and make a career in the military. Tyler idolized Stephen, as well as Ben, who had served as a staff sergeant in the Air Force. And so, fresh out of high school in Hawaii, where Stephen was stationed at the time, Tyler signed up with the Hawaii Army National Guard. Later, at Southern Utah University, Tyler joined ROTC and was commissioned as an active-duty air-defense artillery officer. He was weeks away from completing his MBA remotely when he was killed; the university said it will award Tyler the degree posthumously. The military promoted Tyler to the rank of captain and awarded him the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, and the Combat Action Badge.
Tyler’s parents say he wanted to be a leader like Ted Lasso of the popular HBO television series. He loved how Ted was humble and goofy but dedicated to his team. Kindness, Tyler believed, was not a sign of weakness. And he was inspired to fight for the underdog after watching the movie Legally Blonde. He admired Elle Wood’s can-do attitude. “What? Like it’s hard?” Tyler would say, mimicking her.
Put those together, and that was Tyler with his platoon.
“He wanted his soldiers to be able to approach him and not be scared of him,” Shari says. “He was always thinking of them.”
“It’s just so off the wall,” Stephen chimes in. “You know, as an army officer, he’s quoting Legally Blonde. But it worked.”
In one of the last conversations Stephen had with his son, Tyler told him he was working on getting recognition for his soldiers for the role they were playing in the Iran war. “It was always about his soldiers and leadership, philosophies, trying to better himself, and you know, it was never anything superficial,” Stephen says. “Which is just incredible for a 25-year-old.”
That’s why, even before Stephen and Shari headed to Dover to retrieve Tyler’s body, they had set up a scholarship fund for ROTC cadets in Tyler’s name and started raising money on a GoFundMe page.
As a leader, he never wavered in putting his soldiers first, they wrote on that page. He mentored them, shared his love of finance, and pushed the value of education every chance he got. He believed deeply in the power of military service, especially what it builds in a person: discipline, leadership, character. Everyone who knew him loved him.
Tyler, we are proud of you beyond words. Devastated, yes, but prouder still. No parents could have asked for a better son, and carrying your legacy forward is now our purpose.
We ask only this: that in remembering Tyler, people pause to see the good this country still holds, rather than what divides it. To that end, we’re building a scholarship in his name, one meant to open doors to education for those who serve or hope to. We’re starting it with his death gratuity, and we welcome anyone moved to give.
Courtesy of Claire Fletcher
Coming home
One week after Tyler was buried with full military honors next to his grandfather at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, Stephen’s friends asked him to join them at the Falcons preseason game against the Broncos at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It was the thing he loved to do with Tyler.
“I know you’re watching this nonsense and you’re mad too,” Stephen texted his son about the Falcons losing again; the final score was 7–27. “It’s going to be another one of those seasons.
“I’m just so heartbroken,” he wrote. “I miss you. I love you.”
Shari and Stephen had not been in the same room with their boy in the two years before his death, not since he moved to Fort Bragg. They did not worry much when his unit deployed a year ago, shortly after the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities but then announced a cease-fire before Tyler’s arrival in Jordan. He’ll be fine, Shari and Stephen thought. But everything changed after the United States and Israel launched a much larger attack on Iran in late February and Iran began targeting the Gulf nations.
“Then we were like, Oh, this could be a little dicey,” Stephen says. Still, they thought Tyler would be okay. He was engaged in long-range defense, after all.
Staff Sgt. Angel Rampersad died with Tyler and Isabella in Jordan. Another soldier, Sgt. Michael Swinton, died the same week in a separate incident in northern Iraq. Stephen can’t stop doing the math: Four soldiers in the military’s active-duty force of 1.3 million. What are the odds that one of the dead would be his precious son?
“I keep thinking about that stat all the time,” he says. “How did we get to be one of the four? It’s an awful club.”
Stephen used to closely follow the news and keep up with the strife in the Middle East. But he cannot anymore. “At this point, I’m just numb to it,” he says. “I mean, we lost the most important thing in our lives, and now . . . I used to care.”
Stephen and Shari said goodbye to their only child. What allows them to move forward is preserving Tyler’s legacy. To realize the dreams that eluded their son. That means quitting the life they had built for themselves in Vicenza and moving back to Atlanta. Home now is where Tyler was so happy. Home has to be where their baby boy is at his final rest.
This article appears in our November 2026 issue.
