The pro-Israel world was stunned by the brutal murder of Taylor Force, an American army vet and graduate student at Vanderbilt University, at the hands of a Palestinian Arab terrorist on Tuesday, March 8, in Jaffa, Israel.
People have responded to the story about this 29-year-old American whose life was stolen with an outpouring of concern and an unquenchable need to do something to express their pain. And there have been such opportunities.
Of course, terrorist attacks, sadly, occur with devastating frequency in the tiny sliver of land belonging to the Jewish people, but last week, the brutal murder of a guest to our nation, a non-Jew who was traveling with his wife and classmates, gave a special kick in the gut.
Force, we all soon learned, was an example of the very best America has to offer: an Eagle Scout, a graduate of West Point, an artillery soldier who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan because that is what people who believe in the American ideal do.
“He was a typical Texan — friendly, easy to talk to, big smile, the kind of guy you look forward to grabbing a beer with,” said Paul Marques, a West Point classmate of Force’s who was stationed with him at Fort Hood and deployed with him to Iraq & Afghanistan.
This friendly, dutiful, upstanding young man, while on spring break from graduate school, went with his fellow Vanderbilt Owen Business school classmates to learn about the amazing opportunities for entrepreneurism in Israel, and to share what he’d learned so far at Owen. And there, on the boardwalk between Tel Aviv and Jaffa, a vicious madman murdered Taylor Force just because he was a non-Arab in a place where non-Arabs are not welcome.
After Force was murdered and ten others were injured by the same terrorist, leaders in the Palestinian Authority praised the terrorist. And the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, refused to condemn the attack or the murder.
In the midst of his own grief, Brian Modisette, a classmate of Force’s at Vanderbilt’s Owen school, sensed the pain so many others were feeling, and decided to create a channel through which to express that grief. He started a GoFundMe fundraiser, hoping to raise $10,000 to assist the Force family with the funeral expenses.
Modisette set up the fundraiser on March 9, the day after Force was murdered. Within six hours, more than $12,000 had poured in. And just 24 hours after the fund was set up, more than 550 people donated funds which has thus far raised more than $31,000.
Modisette, when contacted by the JewishPress.com, explained that Force and his sister Kristen were among two of the first people he met when he moved to Nashville to attend the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt.
FUNERAL ON MONDAY IN LUBBOCK
Kristin told Modisette that the details for the funeral were now set:
“A memorial and celebration of Taylor Force’s amazing and impactful life is planned for Monday, March 14 at Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas, at 3:00 p.m.”
The family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations should be made in Taylor’s name to the Wounded Warrior Project.