Savannah high school mourns the loss of soldier, friend

It was just a few years ago that Breonna Moffett marched alongside the JROTC at Windsor Forest High School in the shadows of the Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah.

Five years after her graduation, the corps’ current cadets raised the American flag to half staff on a sunny but somber day outside the school, part of a ceremony held to honor the Army Reservist who was only 23 when she was killed last Sunday by a drone attack on a military base in Jordan.

Two other members of the US Army Reserve, Spc. Kennedy Sanders and Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, were also killed in the attack. 

Moffett was the youngest of the three. 

“The minute you met Breonna, you knew she exuded that she was a very kind, loving, bright soul who cared about everyone around her,” Lieutenant Colonel Michael Busteed, the school’s JROTC instructor, said during his remarks.

Busteed said Moffett was one of his most reliable students, too. A “go to” cadet. 

“When things weren’t going right, if they were kind of faltering, I knew I could go to Breonna,” Busteed said. “She’d carry that ball over the goal line. We were having trouble getting our military ball organized. She took the lead, made it happen.”

The friendships Moffett made in school were lasting friendships. Busteed said even after Moffett graduated, she would occasionally return to help cadets learn their drill and prepare for JROTC competitions.

“I tell my students…you need to choose your friends wisely,” Busteed said. “They can either bring you forward or pull you back in. Everyone that chose Breonna as a friend was brought forward.”

Derrick Butler was principal of Windsor Forest High School for all four years Moffett attended the school. He said the dignity with which Moffett carried herself inspired him, too. 

“When I saw her in the hall, I almost saluted her, because she was very serious and very disciplined,” Butler said.  “And she carried with her those core values that I know her family instilled in her.”

Some members of Moffett’s family attended the assembly. JROTC instructor Lt. Col. Busteed presented Moffett’s family with special coins belonging to the JROTC unit. 

“The history of a unit coin in the military is that you recognize individuals for excellence, for performance above and beyond the call of duty,” Busteed explained before the presentation. “We’d like to recognize the family members for the excellence of Breonna Moffett as a student here at Windsor Forest and as a soldier.”

President Biden chose to recognize both Moffett and her friend Kennedy Sanders of Waycross, who was also killed in the Jordan attack, by posthumously promoting them both from Specialist, the lowest Army rank, to Sergeant. 

Moffett also took her leader’s spirit to the high school band, where she served as drum major under band director Steven Johnson. 

So Johnson’s tribute to Moffett today came not through words, but through music. To end the ceremony by the school flagpole, he hoisted his trombone and belted out Amazing Grace, in tribute to Sergeant Breonna Moffett.

This story comes to The Current GA through a reporting partnership with GPB News, a non-profit newsroom covering the state of Georgia.