Just days before she was meant to return home, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, lost her life in the Middle East. She had spoken to her husband barely two hours earlier.

Just days before she was meant to return home, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, lost her life in the Middle East. She had spoken to her husband barely two hours earlier.

They joked about her long shifts. She even laughed about tripping and falling the night before. Then, suddenly, the messages stopped. “She was almost home,” her husband said.

Nicole served with the 103rd Sustainment Command, the soldiers responsible for ensuring troops have food, water, fuel and supplies. It is work that rarely makes headlines, but without it, armies cannot function.

At home in Minnesota, she was simply a mother. She loved gardening. She grew peppers and tomatoes in the yard and made homemade salsa with her teenage son. With her younger daughter, she spent evenings rollerblading and cycling through the neighbourhood.

A soldier to the world. A mother to her children. A partner to her husband.

Six other soldiers have also killed to date. Behind every uniform is a life waiting back home. A family. A conversation left unfinished. A return that will never happen.