Supporters of Khizr Khan have been visiting his son’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery in recent days, placing flowers, flags, gifts and notes of support in the wake of criticism from Donald Trump.
“To go and see this captain that had sacrificed so much, it was really moving,” Washington, D.C. resident Sally Schwartz told NBC4.
Jack Dowell and his family, visiting from Chicago, went to Arlington Monday to visit his grandfather’s grave, but they also decided to stop by Khan’s site.
“I just wanted to see and pay my respects to an American hero,” he told The Washington Post.
Army Capt. Humayun Khan posthumously received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for protecting his fellow soldiers from a bomb blast in Iraq in 2004. As a taxi filled with explosives barreled toward the troops on the morning of June 8, 2004, Khan stepped in front of the vehicle and blocked the explosion. Khan didn’t survive, but he saved hundreds of soldiers who were eating breakfast nearby.
Khan’s story gained national attention last week when his father, Khizr Khan, delivered a stirring address at the Democratic National Convention. Khan focused on the sacrifice his family, who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1978, made when his son enlisted in the Army.
“Our son, Humayun, had dreams of being a military lawyer,” Khizr Khan said in his speech. “But he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save his fellow soldiers.”
Trump, on the other hand, “sacrificed nothing and no one,” he said.
After Khan’s speech, Trump tweeted that he had been “viciously attacked” and accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of writing the speech.
Trump was also adamant that he had sacrificed plenty in his life. In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Trump said he’d “made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”
In addition to the flowers at the gravesite, there are American flags and a note addressed to Khan’s parents.
In 2007, photographer Eugene Richards captured a quiet moment of Khizr Khan praying by his son’s grave.
As of December 2015, there were almost 6,000 self-identified Muslims serving in the Army, according to the Defense Department.
