Tyler Returns Home

It almost seems to be a scene out of a movie.

A donation center in another state receives a funeral flag box of a fallen soldier, starting them on a mission to find the rightful home for the memorial item. Their mission leads them to contact a local newspaper. It sounds too good to be true but, on August 22, that’s exactly what happened when the Deseret Industries Thrift Store and Donation Center in Rexburg, Idaho called the Saratoga Sun asking if the name Tyler Pickett had any significance to the publication.

Tyler Pickett, a 1999 graduate of Saratoga High School, was involved in sports such as football and wrestling and activities like drama. He was vice president of the senior class, received the “Stout Heart” Award for wrestling two years in a row and the “Lead By Example” Award for football. His long range goal was to own a dairy farm in Wisconsin.

The Sun was able to locate SSG Pickett’s mother Sheri Peterson, formally of Saratoga, and gathered more insight into the life of her son.

Tyler loved the Valley with days spent working in fields, hunting, fishing and enjoying his friends. According to Peterson, “Tyler had lasting friendships from his early upbringing in Wisconsin and Minnesota through his friendships made while in high school in Saratoga.”

In April 2001, he enlisted in the United States Army, just months before September 11.

Peterson said “Tyler did not like being a reader or a writer, but he took the time when deployed to answer every single letter written to him by a 5th grade class in Wisconsin who adopted him while he was stationed in a war zone.”

According to a June 11, 2008 article in The Saratoga Sun, “During his time in the Army, he received two honorable mentions, the second of which was for saving the life of a fellow sergeant.”

On June 8, 2008 Pickett was killed in action, a victim of a suicide bombing in Iraq and was the only Carbon County resident to have died in the Iraq War.

According to their website, Deseret Industries, a non-profit entity, has the mission of “helping those enrolled in the program improve their lives through work, training and education (https://www.deseretindustries.org/about-us).” This donation center in Idaho fulfilled a humanitarian mission.

According to Hutch Thompson who works at the center, “we recognized that this donated item had great importance to someone and wanted to find its home.”

Thompson and his coworkers realized that the funeral flag box had special meaning due to its containing a funeral flag, SSG. Pickett’s military awards and decorations, dog tags, artillery shells and dates of service in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“We do not know how the funeral box made its way to our center,” Thompson said. “We just started looking into finding its owner by studying stories published in The Saratoga Sun.”

Since his death in 2008, the Saratoga Sun has covered the years-long effort to remember Pickett by establishing a memorial park originally in honor of him, now called Never Forget Park.

The Saratoga Sun connected Peterson and the donation center to each other and this “movie” has a happy ending.

Thompson said “Sheri was grateful and thankful for the center making such an effort to get the flag box back to her.” Peterson felt “flabbergasted and blessed” that a piece of Tyler will return home.