{"id":63974,"date":"2026-03-20T18:20:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T22:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=63974"},"modified":"2026-03-20T18:20:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T22:20:55","slug":"governor-ron-desantis-has-indeed-ordered-that-the-united-states-and-florida-flags-be-flown-at-half-staff-on-saturday-march-21-2026-to-honor-the-life-and-service-of-major-cody-a-khork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/03\/20\/governor-ron-desantis-has-indeed-ordered-that-the-united-states-and-florida-flags-be-flown-at-half-staff-on-saturday-march-21-2026-to-honor-the-life-and-service-of-major-cody-a-khork\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor Ron DeSantis has indeed ordered that the United States and Florida flags be flown at half-staff on Saturday, March 21, 2026, to honor the life and service of Major Cody A. Khork"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"a88c71\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #a88c71;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/89224188007-cody-99.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-63975 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/89224188007-cody-99.webp 660w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/89224188007-cody-99-300x169.webp 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Major Khork, a 35-year-old Lakeland resident and Winter Haven native, was one of the six U.S. Army Reserve soldiers killed on March 1 during a drone attack in Kuwait. He was posthumously promoted from the rank of Captain to Major following the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Local Tributes and Memorials<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The community has shown significant support over the past few days as Major Khork&#8217;s remains were returned to Polk County:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Procession:<\/strong> On Wednesday, March 18, a massive law enforcement and veteran motorcade escorted his remains from Lakeland Linder International Airport.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Florida Southern College (FSC):<\/strong> As an alumnus (Class of 2014) and former ROTC cadet, the procession passed through the FSC campus where students and faculty lined the streets. The college has also established the <strong>Major Cody A. Khork \u201914 Endowed ROTC Scholarship<\/strong> in his memory.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Interment:<\/strong> Following his funeral services this weekend at Oak Ridge Funeral Home in Winter Haven, he will be laid to rest with full military honors at <strong>Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell<\/strong> on Monday, March 23.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Major Khork was a decorated 17-year veteran, having served in the National Guard and Army Reserve with deployments to Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Poland throughout his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Major Khork, a 35-year-old Lakeland resident and Winter Haven native, was one of the six U.S. Army Reserve soldiers killed on March 1 during a drone attack in Kuwait. He&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"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.8EjIGl5CwvmV9M1My6a1ssDf6IgT2p2zpHDaPFi-eP8MQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13094,14142,14143],"class_list":["post-63974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-13094","tag-governor-ron-desantis-has-indeed-ordered-that-the-united-states-and-florida-flags-be-flown-at-half-staff-on-saturday","tag-march-21"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63976,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63974\/revisions\/63976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}