First published in the Sept. 9 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Grant Haxton, a 2015 graduate of La Cañada High School, was recently deployed to the Kabul airport to assist with evacuations from Afghanistan.
Haxton is an infantry platoon leader with the 82nd Airborne Division, which was sent to Kabul when the Taliban began rapidly advancing on the city. U.S. and allied forces secured the airport for two weeks while more than 120,000 Americans, Afghans and people of other nationalities were evacuated.
“Grant landed in Kabul a couple of hours after the airport was overrun with people climbing on the outside of planes, trying desperately to leave Kabul,” said his father, David Haxton. “Their first job was to assist in restoring order and securing the airport. Grant and his platoon remained at the airport for the next two weeks.”
Haxton, 24, left on one of the last C-17 transport planes out of Kabul.
He grew up in La Cañada Flintridge and attended Paradise Canyon Elementary School, starting in kindergarten. While at LCHS, he was on the water polo and swim teams. He earned the Eagle Scout rank with Troop 509 at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Haxton graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2019 and was commissioned an officer in 2020 after basic training and Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. After Infantry, Airborne and Ranger schools, Haxton was assigned earlier this year to the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The division is part of the military’s Immediate Response Force, remaining on call to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours of notification. Haxton is the son of Lori Moody and David Haxton of La Cañada Flintridge.
