Grieving Family Remembers PFC Reifert

MARINE CITY, Mich. - U.S. Army Private First Class Shane Reifert of Marine City was serving in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. His unit with the 101st Airborne Air Assault came under attack of enemy fire on Saturday. Shane was killed.

His mother running errands drove up to the family home and found uniformed soldiers waiting in the driveway.

"They were here and no one was home. I pulled up in the driveway, and I just happened to see them," said Kitty Reifert, Shane's mother. "I said to them I wasn't getting out of my car and they asked me to get out, and I told them no, to go away."

Shane Reifert was 23. He dreamed of being in the military since he was a boy.

"Shane decided that he wanted to serve in the military when he was probably eight or nine years old, and the rest of his life was spent towards that goal. He spoke with a lot of veterans, a lot of active duty soldiers to get their input. Many of them tried to talk him out of it. They said don't do it. You can do something else with your life, but nobody was going to change his mind," said Kurt Reifert, Shane's father.

"If he had to go at this young age, at least he was following his dream," Kitty Reifert said.

Shane was home for his last visit in September. He and his sister Elizabeth arranged for her to pick him up at Detroit Metro Airport.

"My brother let me pick him up from the airport by myself, just the two of us, and seeing those Army boots and his ACU and his little face - it wasn't a little face, he was a man - come down the escalator just... I held him so tightly and just breathed him in as much as I could," said Elizabeth Reifert. "I'll never forget that moment that I had with my brother in the airport."

Shane's sister has established a blog online to tell the world about her brother and to gather donations to go to Afghanistan where members of Shane's unit are still serving. You can check out that blog by visiting this link.

The funeral services are incomplete, but a funeral with full military honors will be held at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Marine City.