Members of the 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment salute in formation while paratroopers complete their jump during the opening moments of the drop zone renaming ceremony in honor of Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez at Grafenwoehr, Germany, on April 20, 2023. (Michael Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
GRAFENWOEHR, Germany — The memory of an American paratrooper who died in Afghanistan in 2005 lives on with a new designation at the Army’s vast rural Bavarian training ground.
A landing zone was dedicated Thursday to Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez, who served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade as a member of the Grafenwoehr-based 4th Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment.
From now on, soldiers who jump at Grafenwoehr will fill out their logbooks with “Hernandez DZ,'' Lt. Col. Robert Kinney, the regiment commander, said at the naming ceremony.
The 22-year-old Hernandez and Sgt. Michael J. Kelley of the Army National Guard were killed June 8, 2005, in a rocket attack by insurgents at a forward operating base near Shkin, Afghanistan.
“Cpl. Hernandez was not working the drop zone that day,” Kinney said at Thursday’s ceremony. “He was out there to greet his friends.”
Former platoon member Luke Spencer reminisces on his time in Afghanistan with Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez during a drop zone dedication ceremony in Hernandez's honor at Grafenwoehr, Germany, on April 20, 2023. (Michael Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez’s mother, Eli Cales, with the help of an interpreter, speaks on the lasting legacy and memory of her son during a drop zone dedication ceremony at Grafenwoehr, Germany on April 20, 2023. (Michael Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
A six-round cannon salute is rendered by members of the 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment during a drop zone dedication ceremony at Grafenwoehr, Germany, on April 20, 2023. One round will be placed in the regiment's headquarters building to commemorate Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez. (Michael Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
Former platoon member Luke Spencer comforts Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez’s wife, Jessica, during the drop zone dedication ceremony in honor of her husband at Grafenwoehr, Germany, on April 20, 2023. (Michael Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
A plaque commemorating Cpl. Emmanuel Hernandez now stands at the entrance of the drop zone named after him at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany, April 20, 2023. (Michael Slavin/Stars and Stripes)
Friends and former soldiers who served with Hernandez were on hand for the dedication as well.
“Emmanuel was larger than life,” said Luke Spencer, a platoon member deployed with Hernandez in Afghanistan. “His smile would light up a room.”
Spencer said that no one outworked Hernandez and that he was the embodiment of a 319th paratrooper. Also in attendance were six of Hernandez’s relatives, including his mother, wife and sisters, who flew in from Puerto Rico.
Three of them spoke at the dedication ceremony.
Hernandez and his wife, Jessica, were high school sweethearts.
“We were a very happy couple,” she told Stars and Stripes through an interpreter at a memorial service in 2005 in Vicenza, Italy, where the 173rd Airborne has its headquarters.
The ceremony was accompanied by a live parachute demonstration as well as a six-round cannon salute, one for each of the family members in attendance.
A memorial plaque was unveiled at the site with an engraved picture of Hernandez that details his life and service.
