Lanesborough — For resident Kim Krautter, Veteran’s Day this year marked the new beginning of an annual tradition, one she never contemplated a year ago but an event that celebrates living servicemen and -women while also honoring her son’s memory.
“It’s been a tough week,” she said. “Turning to November has been incredibly hard, a lot of flashes to last November.”
On November 29, 2023, an Osprey V-22 that held 24-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob “Jake” Galliher and seven of his fellow crew members crashed near Yakushima Island, Japan. Dubbed “Gundam 22” for the helicopter’s call sign, the tragedy also took the lives of Major Jeffrey Hoernemann, Major Erick Spendlove, Major Luke Unrath, Major Terrell Brayman, Technical Sgt. Zachary Lavoy, Staff Sgt. Jake Turnage, and Senior Airman B. Kody Johnson. After Jake’s passing, his family, including two young sons, returned to Berkshire County so his widow could realize the couple’s dream of running a coffee shop. Jake’s Java opened in June in Lanesborough.
Fast forward to November 11, 2024, when the small, drive-through Williamstown Road coffee shop staff were kept busy handing out free coffees to veterans who filled every outdoor picnic table on site. At its 2 p.m. closing, another group assembled on the property to walk the mile-and-a-half route to Mountain View Cemetery together, cutting down a gravel path to honor Galliher at the newly embedded gravestone marking his final resting place.
“With our first Veteran’s Day since the accident and opening Jake’s Java, I knew I wanted to do something to honor all veterans and thank them for their service, and every veteran has a sacrifice that they give to our country,” Krautter said of the gratis cups of Joe donated. “But then, I wanted to do something special for Gundam 22, being so close to my heart.”
Following Galliher’s death, the families of his unit bonded in their loss. The Veteran’s Day Annual Gundam 22 Walk is the latest development in efforts to memorialize the group, with last month’s Jam for Jake raising funds for The Jake Galliher Foundation, a nonprofit organization established after its namesake’s death to offer scholarships and awards. Two Gundam 22 families drove from Minnesota and Upstate New York to attend the event while all the crew’s families are on a common social media thread “for life,” Krautter said. Recently, she found out that the Government of Japan is in the process of building a large memorial in the crew’s honor “at the end of the runway they almost made it to.”…