Kendall Rasmusson was just 23 years old when she was forced to watch her younger brother die in a Canadian hospital on May 15, 2008.
On May 1, Sgt. John Kyle Daggett, a 21-year-old Airborne Army Ranger, was struck with a rocket propelled grenade while fighting in Baghdad, Iraq.
This kicked off the most nightmarish two weeks of Rasmusson’s life. By May 3, her family arrived in Halifax to be by Daggett’s side.
Rasmusson told DailyMail.com that her brother ‘was fighting so hard to heal and get better’. But ultimately, despite him being a strong, healthy young man, his injuries were just too severe, causing him fall into septic shock.
‘As soon as he got septic, you could see his wounds were seeping, and then his kidney function went down,’ she said. ‘My mom was like, ‘he’s not going to want to live like this,’ so she just let him pass away. And it was a lot. It was a lot.’
Rasmusson had her hand on his chest as he slipped away, telling DailyMail.com she ‘literally felt his heart stop beating.’ Ever since that day, she has had a new, more profound respect for the armed forces and the sacrifices they make on the battlefield.
It also began her years-long tradition of putting up a magnetic banner on her garage door depicting Daggett in full uniform. She ran into no issues doing this until she moved to a community with an homeowner’s association.
Seventeen years after her brother’s death, Rasmusson was told by her HOA that she needed to take down this harmless display remembering her brother.
In their May 7 letter to her, as seen by DailyMail.com, they described the banner as a ‘nuisance’.
Sgt. John Kyle Daggett was fighting in Iraq in 2008 when he was hit with a rocket propelled grenade. His tragic death inspired his sister, Kendall Rasmusson, to put up a banner honoring him on her garage door at her home in Surprise, Arizona
Pictured: The banner that Rasmusson’s homeowner’s association demanded she take down because it was a ‘nuisance’
Since April 2017, Rasmusson and her three kids have lived in a single-family home in Surprise, Arizona, a suburban community northwest of Phoenix.
The Desert Oasis HOA Board first told her to take the banner down in April 2018, classifying it as a holiday decoration that couldn’t be left up year round.
Rasmusson was fined numerous times for refusing to take it down, totaling to $200. She struck back by speaking to the local news and launching an online petition calling the HOA out.
After the petition racked up thousands of signatures, the HOA board relented in January 2019, a little less than a year after it first sent her a violation notice.
Ever since then, she has been allowed to display it continuously from the day Daggett died, May 15, up until July 14. This covered Memorial Day, Flag Day and Independence Day.
She was also given permission to keep the banner up three days before and 10 days after Veteran’s Day, Daggett’s birthday and Patriot’s Day.
After getting this concession, Rasmusson never imagined that she’d again have to explain herself to this exacting HOA leadership.
That all changed when the HOA got rid of its old management company in favor of Trestle Management Group in November 2024.
Pictured: The letter that was sent to Rasmusson on May 7 instructing her to take down the banner of her brother because it qualified as a ‘nuisance’ under the HOA’s rules
Pictured: Rasmusson visits Daggett’s resting place at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia
These companies typically serve at the pleasure of HOA boards and are the ones to enforce the often draconian rules they impose on homeowners.
On May 7, Trestle’s Jennifer Jahn sent the Rasmusson family a letter telling them that the banner of Daggett violated an HOA regulation on property nuisances.
The letter compared the display to dead plants, rubbish and debris. It was also deemed to be ‘unsightly.’
Again, Rasmusson felt she had no choice but to go to the local news, this time giving an interview with AZFamily.
This prompted a torrent of backlash against the HOA board and Trestle on social media, so much so that the Trestle President Jim Baska sent out a letter to the entire community addressing the controversy.
In it, Baska claimed he didn’t know about the prior HOA management company allowing Rasmusson to put up the banner during certain times of the year.
He also said his company’s software for mistakenly categorizing the banner as a nuisance, an excuse that rang particularly hollow for Rasmusson.
She said Baska’s letter seeking to was a ‘sorry excuse’ for an apology and called it ‘weak.’
Rasmusson said the banner was a Memorial Day decoration for her brother (pictured) and called the HOA management company’s apology ‘weak’
Rasmusson said that Trestle Management Group President Jim Baska (pictured in 2008) told her that the HOA board pressured him into sending out more violation notices. One of those notices happened to be for her banner
‘Regardless of how your software coded this, it literally says it’s a nuisance and you sent it out anyway. Anyone with like a heart would be like, ‘this is a memorial decoration for her brother, and we’re calling it a nuisance, and we’re just going to be okay with sending that out and not think that she’s going to be offended by that?”
She was also outraged that Trestle demanded she take down the banner in May, after it had been up for months without issue.
‘And then also to send it out on May 7. It’s the month of Memorial Day, like why May? Why did you wait to tell me?’ she asked.
Rasmusson pointed out that Trestle manages 310 communities and over 60,000 homes in the Phoenix area.
The company also has more than 80 employees, which made her wonder why no one could have just called her, instead of sending her a ‘heartless’ letter.
Eventually, Baska did call her on the phone and she said he tried to shift blame to the HOA board.
She said Baska told her that the HOA board hired Trestle because the previous management company had become ‘lackadaisical on handing out violation letters.’
According to Rasmusson, Baska said the board told him to ‘go overboard and ramp up sending out violations.’
Those violations, of course, are paired with fines that the homeowners have to pay.
Two days after Rasmusson got the letter calling her brother’s banner a ‘nuisance,’ someone created a petition calling for the removal of HOA President C.C. Hunziker. Residents have accused her of abusing her power and misusing HOA funds
Rasmusson said she didn’t want to be in the news or have to get into a brawl with her HOA over what she feels is a simple, inoffensive expression of her love for her late brother
‘The homeowners in our neighborhood are very upset,’ Rasmusson said, explaining that people are being ‘nitpicked’ for things like their grass being slightly too high and having the wrong type of bench in their yard. ‘It’s getting wild.’
Two days after Rasmusson got the letter calling her brother’s banner a ‘nuisance,’ someone created a petition calling for the removal of HOA President C.C. Hunziker.
The petition, which so far has 637 verified signatures, accuses Hunziker of abusing her power and misusing HOA funds.
When DailyMail.com reached out to Hunziker for comment, she said she was ‘not interested’ in giving a response.
Rasmusson said she didn’t want to be in the news or have to get into a brawl with her HOA over what she feels is a simple, inoffensive expression of her love for her late brother.
‘I do not back down for anything, so I’m gonna keep fighting if I feel like I have the right to do so, or if I can work something out where I can have it up. And I’m glad that they agreed to it, but even if they hadn’t, I would have still put it up,’ she said.
‘I pay my HOA dues every month on time, so they can just keep racking up the fees if they want to. I’m gonna put it up because I want to, and I like doing it.
‘I am proud of him, and I want everybody to know that I radiate an overjoyment of pride for him, what we went through together as a family with his sacrifice and how much he meant to our family.’
Pictured: Rasmusson’s friends and family gather around Daggett’s grave to honor his memory
Pictured: A group of combat veterans gather at Rasmusson’s prior home in Arizona to pay their respects to Daggett
Rasmusson’s initial motivation in putting up the banner was the anger and ‘intense grief’ she was feeling after losing Daggett in such a horrific way.
‘The blast tore up his shoulder. His back, his shoulder and part of the back bicep area of his right arm looked like he got bit by a shark,’ she said.
After he was injured in Baghdad, Daggett was rushed to Germany, where doctors removed his right eye and the right frontal lobe of his brain.
They also placed what’s called an external vascular drain, which helps decrease cerebral spinal fluid that the brain produces.
The intricate system of tubing relieves pressure those fluids exert on the brain. Too much pressure can cause brain damage, seizures, strokes or death.
While Daggett was en route to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the pressure on Daggett’s brain dramatically worsened, forcing the plane transporting him to land in Halifax, Canada.
Even though he didn’t make it, Rasmusson counts herself as lucky that she got to see him before he died.
‘A lot of people don’t have that when they lose their soldier, they don’t get to be with them and to help take care of them. And it meant so much to me,’ she said.
Daggett’s fellow soldiers described him as someone they looked up to, a leader and a goofball, Rasmusson told DailyMail.com
After Daggett’s death, the army renamed the headquarters at Camp Taji after him. Camp Taji was the military installation he was based at throughout his tour in Iraq
Her banner honoring Daggett often attracts veterans and ordinary citizens who thank her for her brother’s service and want to get to know his story.
‘It’s just nice. It brings this military community together more. I think because all the men and women that serve, they all have people that they lost too,’ she said.
‘The military community is smaller than our entire community nationwide, and I feel like sometimes, a lot of their grief and loss and PTSD and their trauma that they went through while serving gets completely overlooked, ignored and forgotten,’ she added. ‘I’m a huge supporter of continuing to raise that awareness.’
She continued: ‘I think my biggest point was to just show everybody how proud I was of him, but then to also make a statement of our military families are here. We’re all present. And it was just to recognize everybody and raise public awareness.’
Rasmusson said Daggett’s fellow soldiers ‘looked up to him and looked to him for direction.’
‘Even his higher ups and all the leaders were like, ‘your brother was the spearhead of our unit,’ she said.
‘He was a leader. He took the younger guys under his wing. He taught them things. He worked with them. He had incredible patience with these guys, but he was funny and wild and such a goofball. Everybody loved him. It was just a big loss, so I hoped to display all of that in my sign.’
Not only was Daggett considered a leader in his unit, he also did something practically no soldiers his age are capable of.
Rasmusson gets the honor of pinning her brother’s Ranger tabs to his uniform at his Ranger School graduation on May 7, 2007. The US Army Rangers are an elite fighting force within the military
Daggett posthumously received the Bronze Star, a military decoration awarded to soldiers who have committed acts of heroism on the battlefield. He was also bestowed with a Purple Heart, a honor reserved for service members who have been wounded or killed in battle
He graduated the 62-day course to become a US Army Ranger at just age 20.
‘That is insanely young for most Rangers. They’re typically in their mid to late twenties,’ she said.
The Rangers, also known as the 75th Ranger Regiment, are an elite fighting force within the army frequently tasked with conducting dangerous special operations missions in enemy territory.
‘I had other buddies of mine that were in the service with my brother,’ she said. ‘No matter how hard these men worked to get the standards met to even qualify for Ranger training, it took them years and years and years. And he did it at such a young age.’
At his graduation from Ranger School on May 7, 2007, Daggett gave his sister the honor of pinning his Ranger tabs to his uniform.
After his death, the army renamed the headquarters at Camp Taji after Daggett. Camp Taji was the military installation he was based at throughout his tour in Iraq.
Daggett posthumously received the Bronze Star, a military decoration awarded to soldiers who have committed acts of heroism on the battlefield.
He was also bestowed with a Purple Heart, a honor reserved for service members who have been wounded or killed in battle.
And still, he inspires his older sister to keep fighting for what she believes in.
‘I fight because you fought. I fight because you paid the ultimate sacrifice. I keep going,’ Rasmusson said.
