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CREVE COEUR — On the day America honored its fallen war heroes, one of the latest of those heroes was remembered at a funeral service in suburban St. Louis.
Air Force 1st Lt. Roslyn Schulte was buried Monday, five days after she was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. She was 25.
"Memorial Day will never be the same," Rabbi Mark Shook told the hundreds who filled Congregation Temple Israel. "No one in this place will ever take Memorial Day for granted again."
Officials say Schulte was the Air Force Academy's 10th graduate — and first female graduate — killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Schulte grew up in Ladue. She captained a state championship lacrosse team at John Burroughs School in a wealthy area of St. Louis County. Friends described her as smart, compassionate and determined.
"It's totally going to change our community," said a friend, 27-year-old Elise Berger. "When someone that close to you dies, you have a new appreciation."
Schulte dreamed of being a fighter pilot since age 12. At the academy, she was among the top in her class.
In her third year, she decided to pursue military intelligence instead of aviation, believing she could do more for her country in that role, her brother, Todd Schulte, 28, said.
She was sent to Afghanistan in February. There, her parents said, she helped teach Afghan military officials how to gather and interpret intelligence. She was traveling in a convoy from Camp Eggers, Kabul, to Bagram Airfield when she was killed.
Schulte met her boyfriend, Air Force Capt. Bruce Cohen, at the base in Hawaii where both were stationed. At the funeral, he tearfully revealed how he planned to propose when she returned to the U.S. in August.
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