Editor’s note: This article was most recently updated Feb. 13 to include revised details for this week’s motorcade procession.
Arrangements have been made for the funeral of Army Reservist Spc. Kennedy L. Sanders, one of three Georgia soldiers killed late last month in a drone attack on their base in Jordan.
Sanders, 24, who was posthumously promoted to sergeant, will be buried in Oakland Cemetery in her hometown of Waycross on Saturday Feb. 17, according to the city manager, Ulysses D. Rayford.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, city officials there requested that locals line the streets to greet a procession on Wednesday afternoon as Sanders’ body is returned to her hometown.
“Your presence and participation in this homecoming event will not only be a moving tribute to Kennedy’s dedication to our nation but also a heartfelt gesture of gratitude to her and her family. Your support and solidarity in welcoming Kennedy home will undoubtedly bring comfort and pride to her and her loved ones,” the post said.
That will be followed by a public viewing on Friday at C.C. McCray City Auditorium on Pendleton Street from 1 p.m. until 8 p.m.
A funeral for Sanders is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Ware County Middle School’s auditorium.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has ordered that flags on all state buildings and grounds be flown at half-staff the day of Sanders’ funeral.
Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, and William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, were also killed in the Jan. 28 drone attack that injured more than 40 others.
Rivers, who was posthumously promoted to staff sergeant, was memorialized at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Carrollton, before he was interred at Georgia National Cemetery in Canton.
A homecoming procession for Moffett, who also was posthumously promoted to sergeant, will be held in Savannah on Thursday, ahead of her funeral on Saturday.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden met privately on Feb. 2 with the families of the killed reservists at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where their remains arrived on an Air Force cargo plane.
Rayford said Sanders’ death “has brought us together as a community.”
At a Waycross City Commission meeting earlier this month, officials told of plans to re-name part of Eads Street, where Sanders grew up and where her parents still live, “Kennedy L. Sanders Way.”
Earlier this month in Doughboy Park, a near-century-old war memorial across from the Waycross Rail Depot, locals saluted Sanders at a gathering for the city’s First Friday event. On the lawn, a photograph of Sanders sat perched on an easel ringed by tiny American flags.
Mayor Michael-Angelo James spoke and offered “our condolences and our sympathies to Shawn and Oneida Sanders, to their entire family and to the friends. And to each one of you, my brothers and sisters, we are commemorating her life, her legacy and the love that she has shown in our community as well as to our world. ... Not only did she give her life. She gave all.”
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