Number 100

If you've driven I-75 across the Kentucky-Tennessee border, you've driven through Corbin. The hometown of Harlan Sanders, where he cooked up his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, straddles the highway, tucked into the coal mountains just outside the Daniel Boone National Forest, about 25 miles north of the state line.

That's where Timothy M. Jackson, known there as Matt, grew up and graduated from high school. This morning, the announcements on the public address system at the school included the news that Matt, now and forever 22 and a Lance Corporal in the Marines, died yesterday in Afghanistan.

WKYT in Lexington:

Reports are that Jackson was killed by an IED, an improvised explosive device.

SNIP

(Jackson's JROTC leader Lt. Col Rick) McClure says as a high school student, Jackson dreamed of serving his country.

“Matt was very quiet, he tried to fly under the radar, didn't want to get in trouble, have his name known, but he always had a big smile on his face, and as long as I knew him, what he wanted to do was to graduate from high school and be a Marine,” McClure said.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Matt expected a life beyond Afghanistan. That he didn't get beyond expecting is a continuing outrage.