Army Achievement Medal
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We Honor and Remember:
SSgt John Reid
Hometown: Highland Park, New Jersey, U.S. Age: 27 years old. Died: April 11, 2023. Unit: Air Force - Holloman Air Force Base, NM. John Reid (Akbarjon Nurakhunov). John Reid, a beloved father, husband, son and brother, joined the United States Air Force in April 2019 and passed away on April 11, 2023 when he was 27 three days short of his birthday. During his service and two deployments he was recognized for excellent service by various higher-ranking officers. He was in the middle of his preparation for test for his promotion to E-5, and also, he was very close to finishing his bachelor’s degree in international relations and Global Security, and to achieving his ultimate dream; becoming an officer in the Air Force. John was a happy go lucky kind of a guy; never stopped talking, never stopped joking and never stopped making you laugh. It always seemed like he had answers for everything. We first emigrated to United States when he was twelve years old and we lived for a year in Atlanta, Georgia. During his first parent teacher conference in middle school, his teacher remarked that even though he didn’t know a lot of English at the time, he would never shy away from answering questions and participating. He would say what he could in English, and then continue in Russian until he said everything he knew. He was also a very supportive son. His mother went to college when she was in mid-forties, and she was understandably very nervous to go. He was always a pillar of support that she could lean on when times got hard and she was losing confidence in herself. He loved debating on various topics, and always had to be in the right. With his father it would invariably be about politics of the cold war and neither of them would give in. With his brother, they would debate ancient and medieval history for days, which they both loved. He loved football (soccer). He didn’t really have a favorite team, but his favorite player was Kaka, who he followed for his entire playing career. He did however, love to make fun of his brother’s team, Manchester United, who are not good anymore. Every phone call would start with “So I heard your team lost again?”. He had a great passion for cars; he could tell you any fact about any car that you asked. He got his first car for his seventeenth birthday which was a Honda Civic. He hated it. He worked hard for a year and got a car he really wanted which was Scion FRS. It was a beautiful orange color. Immediately after getting the car, he joined an FRS club, and he would go to their meet ups every so often into the mountains. He modified it to his liking, especially all the exhausts. You could hear him from three blocks away that he was approaching. His life was short but was full of life and happiness and he accomplished a lot, and he left a good mark with every person that he met. His call-sign was “Heart”. He was a son everyone wished for, he was the greatest brother, and he was a perfect husband and father for his twin boys. His favorite saying was that in a cup half filled with water, you should always look at it as half-full so we will try our best to live our lives like that. Burial: Greenwood Cemetery Hamilton, Mercer County, New Jersey, USA. |
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New Jersey Run for the Fallen 2023 ~ Click photos below to enlarge...
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