Knock on the Door, a Knock on the War
The knock came just after 6 a.m., way too early for visitors at the neat two-story home in the hills of Castaic.
"I remember my wife wondering who could be at the door at this hour," says Loren Farell, thinking back on that day in July 2003.
It was to have been a big day for Farell, a Los Angeles native and Vietnam vet who was being promoted to lieutenant in the LAPD.
His daughter, Ashley, had just graduated from college and was staying with her parents while looking for a teaching job. Ashley's husband was in Iraq, fighting a war the Farells supported and believed in.
Farell went downstairs, looked through the peephole and saw an Army sergeant.
"You remember how you got butterflies as a kid?" Farell asks. "I got that tenfold. I opened the door, and she asked me, 'Does Ashley Ashcraft live here?' I said, 'Yes, she's my daughter,' and the sergeant asked if she could speak to her."
Farell knew what was coming. His daughter's husband, Evan Ashcraft, 24, was with the 101st Airborne Division. He was a smart kid who played classical piano and wanted to join the LAPD after the war, just like his father-in-law, Mr. Farell.
"You know how cops say a shooting is like slow motion?" asks Farell, who was one of the first two officers on the scene of the harrowing 1997 North Hollywood bank heist. "That's how this was. I stepped outside, shaking like a leaf. I said, 'I'm her father, are you here for what I think you're here for?' She started crying, and she said, 'Yes.' "
Now Farell tried to figure out how he was going to break this to his daughter.
"I aged 25 years. I started to walk up the stairs and my legs weighed a million pounds each. All I could think of was, 'How can I sugarcoat this?' My wife asked who was at the door, and I must have been all white. I said, 'Evan is dead.' She started screaming, and then Ashley bolted out of her room.' "
<MORE>
latimes.com |
