It was a typical western Washington day in February 2009, overcast and gray, when Sally Sheldon went to the door of her South Aberdeen home. The home is on a quiet side street, a modest size with a small patch of lawn extending past her covered porch to the sidewalk.

Things hadn’t been easy lately for Sheldon, she had lost her job — the job that helped her finally buy a house late in middle age — and the impact of her mother’s recent death lingered as a tremor in her life. Still, life moved, the day had risen and began anew like every other day and so Sheldon, a mother of three adult children, answered the door like she would any other day.

At the door were two military men and a female chaplain.

Sheldon’s son was active duty in the Air Force, and military uniforms weren’t uncommon. Her son Tim Davis had been in Afghanistan in combat areas on his second tour. During the first tour, he received his first Purple Heart for an injury, and that’s the first thing that came to Sheldon’s mind seeing the three somber individuals on her porch.

“Was Tim shot?” she asked.

Call it motherly instinct or intuition, or just a good read on body language — after asking the question, Sheldon knew it was more than that. Her son was gone, killed in action.

John Wayne

Tim Davis was born in 1981. The middle, brown-haired sibling, Tim was flanked by an older red-headed brother and a younger sister with strawberry blonde hair.

The children were known by some throughout Montesano for a peculiar trait — their mother Sally Sheldon would drive a car and have them run behind it in the evenings. Her goal was to tire the children out.

“It was to wear them out so they didn’t wear me out,” Sheldon says.

But Tim wasn’t one to be fatigued, even in his young age. Sheldon had nicknamed him “mountain goat” because of the way he’d climb on everything.

When they lived in the Monte Villa Apartments, Tim and his siblings would shinny up trees and climb up on the flat roofs.

“I was the only one who had children at the apartment, and I would rent to all the elderly, but one of my tenants would call me and say, ‘Sally, your boys are up on the roof,’” Sheldon remembers.

Tim was a quiet boy (an uncle of his said he was “like John Wayne”) who excelled at social studies. As an elementary-aged boy in a classroom, he’d finish his work as quickly as possible to go to recess.

Sheldon ran with her children — the first time Tim ran with her, he was 4 years old.

His athletic prowess continued into his high school years.

Tim, like other teenagers had a part-time job — he worked at the Orange Julius at what was then the SouthShore Mall in South Aberdeen — but he also stayed active in Montesano High School sports. He was seventh in the state wrestling tournament during the 1998-99 school year, he ran the 800 meter in track and he played football.

He graduated from Montesano High School in 1999. In one of his senior pictures, he’s posed in his football uniform.

Pain

In March 2017, Tim is with Sheldon in a motel. He hugs his mother, his arms around her. Sheldon is concerned that they have to tell the colonel that there was a mistake — Tim is alive. Sheldon, overcome with emotion, falls to the floor crying before waking.

It’s called a vivid dream, but to Sheldon it felt real.

The sun may have risen every day since Sheldon learned her son had been killed, and the world may have continued functioning, but for a long while, Sheldon wasn’t a part of it.

She was six credits away from earning an accounting degree, but with the loss of her job, the death of her mother, and the devastating death of her son, she couldn’t keep moving in the world.

Following the intervention of friends, an increased interest in politics and her faith, Sheldon got back on her feet and back into the world, but the feelings of loss are not gone.

“The pain doesn’t go away,” Sheldon said. “You learn to cope with it.”

The last time they spoke, Tim was in Afghanistan, it was his birthday, and the phone went dead, cutting their call short. He died less than two weeks later.

Combat

Tim enlisted in 1999. Sheldon didn’t object.

“I was fine with it,” she says. “They get their schooling and everything, but we never dreamed there would be a war — you don’t want to think that.”

Two years later, on a sunny September morning in New York City and elsewhere in the country, the world changed, and war was imminent.

Despite getting his start in the service as a SERE (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) instructor at Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, Tim wanted to do something else with his service. He set his sights on becoming a combat controller.

Sheldon then objected.

“That’s when I was bothered,” she said. “I didn’t want him to be a combat controller — I didn’t like that word, ‘combat.’ I was fine with him being a SERE instructor.’”

A family member convinced her to support her son’s determination and service, and despite her reluctance, she ultimately did just that.

After two years of training, Tim earned the combat controller title.

Now retired CMSgt Antonio D. Travis was chief of the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron during Tim’s last rotation. Tim was assigned to the squadron.

“The best way to put it in our terms — that’s if I was talking to another combat controller — he was a solid operator,” Travis says. “He was someone I would want on my team, in my squadron, both for his ability on the battlefield and off.”

According to Travis’ accounts, Tim was competent in his skills, “able to control air assets while under heavy fire and employ devastating effects on the enemy.” He was “level headed” Travis said, “he knew when to shoot or clear an asset hot, but more importantly when not to.”

It was on Feb. 20, 2009, that Tim Davis died in Afghanistan. He was killed immediately when “enemy forces” blew up a hidden explosive device in the road as the vehicle Tim was in traveled over it.

Following his death, then Lt. Col. Brett Nelson wrote to Sheldon about her son’s death and his sacrifice.

“Tim was a brave and selfless man who sacrificed himself and ultimately his life so that others might have peace,” Nelson wrote on Feb. 23, 2009. “On the day of his death, he was the only one on his team qualified to use combat aircraft to drop bombs on enemy forces engaging his teammates at close range. Through that skill he was responsible for the safety of more than 80 American, Afghani, and Czechoslovakian special operators.”

A memorial service was held for Tim on Feb. 22 in Afghanistan.

“Tim, SSgt. Timothy P. Davis, I will not forget him, his service, dedication nor his sacrifice,” Travis says. “I am usually pretty stoic and get through just about anything without losing my composure. I failed miserably during his final roll call. Some people just leave too big of an impression and are too great to lose. Tim Davis was one of those people.”

Bronze Star

The Montesano High School gym was filled with family, friends, service members and veterans for a memorial service on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009. A long funeral procession traveled through town to the Wynooche Cemetery where a rifle barrage was fired in his honor and “Taps” was played by a single bugler. A military cargo plane flew overhead.

It was the final stop for Davis who had traveled far and had been remembered along the way. Not only was there a memorial service in Afghanistan and Montesano, another memorial service was held in Florida, where he had been stationed.

He was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star for valor and a Purple Heart, both honors he had received when he was injured by shrapnel during his first tour of duty.

They’re but four awards in a long list of medals and honors. His other military decorations include the Air Force Commendation Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal, Air Force Combat Action Medal, Good Conduct Medal, National Defence Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the NATO Medal.

Tim had a son T. J., who was a year old when Tim was laid to rest.

People deal with loss in their own ways. Tim’s loss is remembered in many ways, both locally and nationally.

In October 2009, 12 special tactics airmen walked more than 800 miles through five states — from Lackland Air Force Base in Texas to Hurlburt Field in Florida, where Tim had been stationed — as a memorial to him. They carried a baton with Tim’s name on it during their journey.

Tim is listed on the veterans memorial at Fleet Park.

A memorial street sign will be placed over Academy Street in Montesano — near his childhood home at Monte Villa Apartments — on Memorial Day this year so all will remember Tim Davis as they travel through Montesano.

Sheldon, as a mother, remembers her son in many ways.

“They said he was a warrior and a natural-born leader — that’s what his people said. And he wanted it,” she says. “I have pride in my son and his accomplishments. All of my children. I called them winners.”

In the end, it is her faith that has helped her endure the loss.

“I will see him again,” she says. “I know I will see him again.”