Glen

I had recently heard somewhere  that one of the two former Navy SEALs killed during the attack on our US Embassy in Libya on September 11th, 2012 had been a long time Snowbird rider. His name was Glen Doherty and his actions that day saved many many lives. His good friend Dawn Cardinale wrote a story for Powder Magazine about the life and times she shared with this American hero. Below is an except of her words:

Glen

Please remember while you are out there shredding that guys like Glen with big guns and bigger hearts are largely responsible for allowing people like us to do what we do in the mountains. 

Words: Dawn Cardinale

I learned of Glen’s death through our friend Elf. He called and said that Glen was shot and killed on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya. We sat without speaking. I can’t call it a comfortable silence, but it is understood. We weren’t searching for the right thing to say, because it doesn’t exist. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but Elf said, “Dawn, I’m getting hungry.”

Glen and I and all our mutual friends worked and skied at Snowbird. I never talked to him about being a Navy SEAL or, later, a private agent, so I never saw him in that way, as part of the military elite, doing god-knows-what in god-knows-where. I didn’t like to think of things like life-threatening missions or what a Middle Eastern desert could do to someone’s skin. And he never brought it up, so to me he was Glen—a ski buddy and a great, fun guy who always smiled and happened to be really, really strong.

Read the full article on Powdermag.com

Glen
Glen in the mid 90’s skiing in his favorite Scott Schmidt-style jacket that Chad Zurinskas gave him. Chad wore the matching pants. Bromance is not a new thing. Photo: Thomas Burke

Snowbird has honored Glen by naming a section at the far end of the Cirque after him. The next time you are enjoying the powder just short of Tower 3 think of Glen and the other soldiers who allow us to live as we do.

Glen's 

More info on the attack is available here.

Bio via Wikipedia:

Glen Anthony Doherty (c. 1970 – September 11, 2012) of Encinitas, was a native of Winchester, Massachusetts, and a 1988 graduate of Winchester High School. Doherty was the second of three children born to Bernard and Barbara Doherty. He trained as a pilot at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University before moving to Snowbird, Utah for several winters and then joining the United States Navy. Doherty served as a Navy SEAL, responded to the bombing of the USS Cole, had tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and left the Navy in 2005 as a Petty Officer First Class. After leaving the Navy, he worked for a private security company in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kenya and Libya. In the month prior to the attack, Doherty as a contractor with the State Department told ABC News in an interview that he personally went into the field in Libya to track down MANPADS, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and destroy them.

Doherty was a member of the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that opposes proselytizing by religious groups in the United States military. Doherty was coauthor of the book The 21st Century Sniper.

Doherty’s funeral was held at Saint Eulalia’s parish in his native Winchester on September 19, 2012. His Celebration of Life was held in Encinitas, California the weekend of October 12–14, 2012.

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