Aaron Butler, killed in Afghanistan, gets a hero’s welcome in his small Utah hometown

Monticello • It seemed nearly every resident of this small southern Utah city was standing on Main Street early Thursday afternoon.

They came to welcome home Staff Sgt. Aaron Butler, the Utah National Guard soldier killed by Islamic State group fighters in Afghanistan last week.

Butler’s remains arrived at Monticello City Airport just before noon, then were transported 25 miles via motorcade to San Juan Mortuary in Blanding ahead of a Saturday funeral.

Along the route, hundreds of American flags and dozens of homemade signs, many held by schoolchildren, sent a clear message: We’re proud a man as brave as Butler grew up here.

“If you said he couldn’t do it, he’d go and do it,” Monticello resident Paul Mantz said of Butler.

Mantz is retired from the Utah Guard and had mentored Butler, encouraging him to join the elite 19th Special Forces Group several years ago.

“He was very intelligent, and he was extremely athletic — just an extremely talented young man,” Mantz said of his 27-year-old protégé. “He was a person I loved and respected.”

Butler was killed and 11 of his fellow Utah National Guard members were injured Aug. 16 in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. The group had been clearing a building looking for Islamic State loyalists, but the structure had been booby-trapped and exploded.

The injured are expected to survive, with the conditions of the three most severely hurt recently upgraded from critical to serious, Utah National Guard public affairs officer Lt. Col. Steven Fairbourn said earlier this week.

After Butler’s American flag-draped casket was lifted off the airplane Thursday, his parents, Laura and Randy Butler, and his fiancee, Alexandria Seagroves, slowly approached. Seagroves bent over the casket and cried. The three were soon joined by several of Butler’s seven siblings, arm in arm.

The last time the Butlers had seen their son was in April, just before his deployment. He stopped in with his fellow soldiers at the family business, Randy’s Auto, as the team was on its way to Texas. Laura Butler made the group chocolate-chip cookies, and the Butlers were able to briefly visit with their son, assuring him things would be fine at home while he was gone.

Mantz recalled hearing the news that a Utah National Guard team had been attacked in Afghanistan last week. He quickly went to the Butler home to see if the family members had any news.

“I wanted to know if they’d heard from him, so I’d quit worrying,” he said.

The family members had not heard anything and were not overly concerned, Mantz said. But shortly after he left, he said, the Butlers got word that Aaron had been killed — the 11th U.S. service member to die in Afghanistan this year, and the first Utahn to die in combat since 2013.

Mantz noted that Butler is the fifth San Juan County resident to be killed fighting the war on terror — and three of them, counting Butler, were in special operations units. Jason Workman, a Navy SEAL from Blanding, was killed in Afghanistan in 2011 when a helicopter he was riding in was shot down. Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Winder, an Army Special Forces combat medic from Blanding, was killed in 2007 in Iraq from enemy fire.

Gov. Gary Herbert on Thursday ordered American and Utah flags to be lowered Saturday in honor of Butler’s funeral. It is scheduled for noon at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stake center (a large Mormon meetinghouse) in Monticello (population 2,200). A viewing is scheduled from 9 to 11:30 a.m., with burial to follow at the Monticello City Cemetery.

Monticello High School students Braxton Atwood, 17, and Brevin Olson, 14, watched Thursday as the motorcade carrying Butler’s remains passed by. Many years separate their tenure at the school from Butler’s. But both have heard inspirational stories about Butler, and know his family. And both are wrestlers, as Butler was.

Atwood said a large banner memorializing Butler’s four state championships still hangs proudly at the school.

“I look up to him,” Olson said. “He was one of the greatest.”