Iowa peace officers honored

DES MOINES - Dozens of law officers from around Iowa gathered Friday to be honored and to be present when the names of four fallen comrades were added to the Iowa Peace Officer Memorial on the state Capitol grounds.

Gov. Terry Branstad and state public safety Commissioner Larry Noble presented a folded flag and their condolences to the widow and two young children of Rockwell City police officer Jamie Buenting, who died while responding to a standoff situation last September. He was one of the four whose names were added to the wall of 187 names of Iowa peace officers who have died in the line of duty over the years.

'This is always a very moving ceremony,” said Branstad, who served as a military police officer during the Vietnam War years. Branstad said it was important to convey to Buenting's family that he will be remembered by the grateful citizens of Iowa for his dedication and service.

'It's a very big loss for the family and they need to know the respect and appreciation and support that they have from the people of our state,” he told reporters after the half-hour observance on a grassy slope between the state Capitol building and the Oran Pape State Office Building that houses state public safety operations.

Along with Buenting, the state honored City Marshal Robert C. Coulter of Farmington Police Department, who died in December 1902, City Marshal Reuben Fenstenmaker of Farmington Police Department who died in January 1868, and Marshal Joseph Kashmetter of the Alton Police Department, who died in March 1911.

Friday's ceremony was to remember ordinary people who do extraordinary things to allow the rest of us to conduct our daily lives with sense of safety and security, Noble said, and to remember the heroes who 'have lost their lives while protecting ours.”

'These officers go to work each day not knowing what the future holds or if they will make it home safely to their families at the end of their shifts,” he said. 'Some don't and, unfortunately, that is why we are here today, to honor them.”

Friday's ceremony featured uniformed officers on horseback, a bagpipe and drum corps, a 21-gun salute and the playing of 'Taps” by a solitary bugler at the memorial, where flags flew at half-staff against a metal gray overcast sky.

'I get along pretty good until they start playing that horn,” said Clel Baudler, a Republican state representative from Greenfield and retired law officer who served for 32 1/2 years in the Iowa State Patrol.

'Once they start playing the Taps,” he said, pausing. 'I love this day, I'll put it that way. This honors the law enforcement officers that have given the ultimate sacrifice but it also honors the men and women who still wear the badge.”

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