The fallen US Army Capt. Humayun Khan and the son of Khizr Khan grew up in the United States and attended the University of Virginia, where he joined Reserved Officers’ Training Corps. Upon graduating, he enlisted in the Army and eventually became a Captain. While trying to stop two suicide bombers in Iraq, he died on June 8, 2004.
During a speech on national security in Minneapolis earlier this year, Clinton referenced Humayun’s sacrifice. A video of that speech played at the DNC before Khizr addressed the crowd. Clinton recounted the scene on that fateful day as a suspicious vehicle started moving towards Humayun’s infantry unit.
Khan’s son was an Army captain born in the United Arab Emirates, who moved to Maryland as a small child, graduating from the University of Virginia before enlisting in the U.S. Army, said Hillary Clinton in a video introducing Khan’s speech.
In June 2004, Humayun Khan was serving in Iraq, and his infantry unit was guarding the gates of its base, when a suspicious vehicle appeared. “Captain Khan told his troops to get back, but he went forward. He took 10 steps toward the car,” said Clinton in the video. The car exploded, killing Khan, but the rest of the troops were saved because he stepped forward.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart posthumously, said Clinton, and he was 27-years-old when he died. “‘We still wonder what made him take those 10 steps,’ Khan’s father said in a recent interview,” Hillary Clinton said. “…All those things he learned in this country kicked in. It was those values that made him take those 10 steps.”
According to ABC, Khizr Khan’s son was one of 14 American Muslims who died serving in Iraq in the 10 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
According to a U.S. Department of Defense press release, Captain Humayun S. M. Khan, 27, of Bristow, Virginia, died June 8, 2004, in Baquabah, Iraq, “after a vehicle packed with an improvised explosive device drove into the gate of his compound while he was inspecting soldiers on guard duty.” The release said that Khan was assigned to Headquarters Company, 201st Forward Support Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany.
Arlington Cemetery says that Capt. Khan “was laid to rest with full military honors. Captain Khan was a Pakistani American who served in the U.S. army as an ordnance officer, being the senior-most community member to die in Iraq.” The press release on his funeral said, “His colleagues and superiors remembered him for his courage, honesty, sense of humor and grace while in the field, even under pressure. Captain Khan’s colleagues eulogized his exemplary services and praised him for the leadership he provided to his troops.”
A Muslim chaplain who spoke at the funeral highlighted “the ethnically-diverse group that had come to pay its respects to Captain Khan,” who was described in the release as “one amongst the growing number of Pakistani Americans in the U.S. Army.”
