Monroe restaurant joins in honoring 13 fallen US servicemembers in Kabul

A number of restaurants and bars across the country came up with a way to honor the 13 U.S. servicemembers killed in Afghanistan when two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds flocking to Kabul’s airport last Thursday.

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Tuscano’s Italian Kitchen in Monroe created their own version of the tribute.

“My son, the general manager Conner, sent me a photo the other morning showing a brewery of back east somewhere that had 13 pints of beer in a half circle and a sign that said “table reserved” in the center,” owner Scott Perry told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show. “And I kind of looked at it and didn’t really know what that was for a second. And all the sudden I went, ‘oh my gosh, they’re honoring our fallen, our warriors from Afghanistan the other day.'”

“I talked to my wife Kathy and we decided immediately to get on board and use our platform in Monroe to do basically the same thing with our own style,” he said. “So we printed up a nice little memory poster — Kathy did. I got up to the restaurant, got that table set right in the very front door so people almost had to trip over it as they rolled in. We put 13 glasses up there, same thing, in a nice place setting and an American flag in every one of those glasses.”

He says customers have been coming in and want to be part of it, to honor the fallen. He says there have been tears, hugs, and plenty of shared stories.

Perry says they’re also raising money for the local VFW and for Wounded Warriors.

“The money was, I guess, secondary,” Perry said. “I think the biggest reason we wanted to do this is to raise the awareness in our community of the fallen and all those who have served that we can communicate with. We can’t communicate with those the 13 glasses are representing though, those wonderful people and their families, but we communicate today with people who have served.”

“That was the overarching message I believe I wanted to communicate was that, hey, thank a vet,” Perry added. “We have so many people around us that we need to say thank you to, and it was a great way as people walk in the front door to start thinking about that. What can I do? Who can I thank?”

“I don’t want our vets to think what they did was all for not,” Perry told Dori. “I want our vets to know how much we appreciate what they’ve done and do every day.”

Tuscano’s Italian Kitchen in Monroe plans to have the flag at half-mast for the rest of the week, and will keep collecting money for charity through the rest of the week as well.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.