Lanesborough — For resident Kim Krautter, Veteran’s Day this year marked the new beginning of an annual tradition, one she never contemplated a year ago but an event that celebrates living servicemen and -women while also honoring her son’s memory.
“It’s been a tough week,” she said. “Turning to November has been incredibly hard, a lot of flashes to last November.”
On November 29, 2023, an Osprey V-22 that held 24-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob “Jake” Galliher and seven of his fellow crew members crashed near Yakushima Island, Japan. Dubbed “Gundam 22” for the helicopter’s call sign, the tragedy also took the lives of Major Jeffrey Hoernemann, Major Erick Spendlove, Major Luke Unrath, Major Terrell Brayman, Technical Sgt. Zachary Lavoy, Staff Sgt. Jake Turnage, and Senior Airman B. Kody Johnson. After Jake’s passing, his family, including two young sons, returned to Berkshire County so his widow could realize the couple’s dream of running a coffee shop. Jake’s Java opened in June in Lanesborough.
Fast forward to November 11, 2024, when the small, drive-through Williamstown Road coffee shop staff were kept busy handing out free coffees to veterans who filled every outdoor picnic table on site. At its 2 p.m. closing, another group assembled on the property to walk the mile-and-a-half route to Mountain View Cemetery together, cutting down a gravel path to honor Galliher at the newly embedded gravestone marking his final resting place.
“With our first Veteran’s Day since the accident and opening Jake’s Java, I knew I wanted to do something to honor all veterans and thank them for their service, and every veteran has a sacrifice that they give to our country,” Krautter said of the gratis cups of Joe donated. “But then, I wanted to do something special for Gundam 22, being so close to my heart.”
Following Galliher’s death, the families of his unit bonded in their loss. The Veteran’s Day Annual Gundam 22 Walk is the latest development in efforts to memorialize the group, with last month’s Jam for Jake raising funds for The Jake Galliher Foundation, a nonprofit organization established after its namesake’s death to offer scholarships and awards. Two Gundam 22 families drove from Minnesota and Upstate New York to attend the event while all the crew’s families are on a common social media thread “for life,” Krautter said. Recently, she found out that the Government of Japan is in the process of building a large memorial in the crew’s honor “at the end of the runway they almost made it to.”
Before embarking on the walk, Krautter enunciated her biggest hope for the lost members of Gundam 22: “that they can’t ever be forgotten.”
New additions now adorn Jake’s Java premises, including a fence made from bunkbeds from Galliher’s youth, with banners depicting different aspects of his life. The two-dollar bills on the interior walls of the shop have particular significance to Galliher. His bride, Ivy Galliher, had given him the two-dollar bill she received as a tip at the Washington coffee shop where they met, and when Jake Galliher’s wallet was recovered, it still had that bill in it. As if that wasn’t enough of a sign, Krautter and Ivy Gallaher spied a two-dollar bill when they entered Greylock Grounds, the precursor to Jake’s Java, on their way to buy the business from Joe Prince.
To view the fence, banners, and two-dollar bills, see video here.
Jake’s Java patron Linda Pruyne took a seat at a picnic table to join in the November 11 celebration. “We really want to support all veterans today, but especially the Gundam 22,” the lifetime Lanesborough resident said. “Kim [Krautter] is a resident here, and it was tragic, a tragic event.”
For Tor Krautter, the day is meaningful, given the group that turned out to join his family, honoring his stepson’s legacy as well as all veterans. “We thank all of them for their service and their sacrifice,” he said.
Although Anthony Whiteley had a night shift to work following the day’s walk and events, he said he wouldn’t have missed honoring his childhood friend and the other airmen that were lost and supporting Galliher’s family. “We went to Reid [Middle School] together, we went to Taconic [High School] together, and we spent a lot of time together off the [football] field, just hanging out by the lake,” he said, adding that Galliher was a very loyal friend. “I know he would be there for me if the roles were reversed. No question about it.”
However, Kim Krautter never expected to experience the walk of this Veteran’s Day when Jake Galliher enrolled in the armed forces. She said her concern for her son began when he chose a military career over college. “But Jake always liked the community and camaraderie of doing something and making something happen, and it meant a lot to him,” Kim Krautter said.
Having not seen Jake Galliher’s passion for military service prior to that time, she said she “actually thought he was joking” when her son informed her of his plans. He asked her to meet with his recruiter, with Kim Krautter asking the recruiter to present Jake Galliher with the full picture of life in the armed forces, other than traveling the world and free education.
However, after Jake Galliher scored so high on the Military Entrance Processing Station test—the aptitude exam used to determine whether an enlistee is qualified to serve—that he was assigned as a linguist, her fears eased. “So, Jacob was in a pretty safe spot when it came to jobs in the military,” Kim Krautter said. He learned Mandarin over a period of two years in a California language school. “Jacob didn’t want a desk job,” she said. “He wanted something where he would travel and be able to be a part of things, but [I] never thought he would be in danger even though when he went to Japan, he started flying.”
Gundam 22 was dedicated to special operations, with each member “serving our country in a very important way that people won’t ever fully be able to know,” she said.
Interesting for Kim Krautter are the similarities between the crew’s participants that she discovered following Galliher’s death. She described them as “corny-dad-joke kind of guys” who loved the mountains and oceans. “In that [final] sunset, they were all together,” Kim Krautter said.
