Navy SEAL wore flag under body armor until last mission, in Chinook shot down

Navy SEAL Leaves Shining Legacy

By: James Kinsella
Published: 08/12/11

In late June, Navy SEAL Kevin A. Houston, a 1994 graduate of Barnstable High School, was visiting his surrogate father, Christopher Kelly of Osterville.

“Oh, wait a minute,” he said to Mr. Kelly, who served in the 101st Airborne Division in during the Vietnam War. “I’ve got something for you.”

Mr. Houston went out to his car and brought back an American flag wrapped folded into in a square, and a letter.

The letter gave a history of the flag: Mr. Houston had worn it between his chest and his body armor in all three of his deployments in to Afghanistan.

In those deployments, he had worn the flag on more than 100 capture/kill missions that resulted in 650 enemy killed in action and 300 enemy detained.

Mr. Houston also was wearing the flag on the mission when one of his best friends was killed.

“I carried this flag for you from the beginning,” he wrote in the letter to Mr. Kelly. “I’m honored to hand this to you.”

By early this month, Mr. Houston, a special warfare operator chief petty officer, was back in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment.

Then, this past Saturday, Mr. Houston was riding in a NATO Chinook helicopter on a mission above the mountains of eastern Afghanistan when the aircraft was shot down, killing him and the other 37 people on board, including 21 other Navy SEALs. He was 35.

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