Freedom Remembered

Born Oct. 22, 1976 in New Haven, CT

Died Oct. 2, 2009 in Afghanistan

Captain Benjamin Sklaver, humanitarian, patriot, soldier, and leader. Ben grew up and was educated in Hamden, Connecticut, graduating in the top 5% of his class. He received his Master’s degree in International Relations from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tuft’s University. He joined the ROTC while enrolled there and upon graduation in 2003 was commissioned a lieutenant in the Army reserves. He began working at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, working in the Office of Emergency Health and Refugee Relief, and this took him to Africa, where he worked on hunger and refugee relief issues. Deployed in 2006 to the Horn of Africa, specifically Uganda, he worked not only for the local people fighting their enemy, but to re-establish water to villages torn apart after 20 years of civil war. He helped dig wells and protect the clean water supplies for the villages. The people of Uganda were so amazed at Ben’s desire to help them, they gave him the nickname “Moses Ben.” Seeing the problems a lack of pure drinking water causes, Ben upon coming home to the states in 2007 formed his own nonprofit group, The ClearWater Initiative, to help provide access to clean water across the globe. He worked 30 hours a week for his project while also working full time for the CDC. In early 2009, Ben took a job with FEMA in New York to work on disaster planning. In the spring he was deployed to Afghanistan, assigned to the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion, based at Greensboro, N.C. While there he worked with the military to establish better relationships with the people of Pashtun, in hopes that providing the village with clean water, schools and hospitals, fewer of them would join the Taliban. He was killed in action in Murcheh, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered when a suicide bomber ambushed him and another soldier. Ben’s reserve duty was to end next year and he was set to marry his fiancée in June of 2010. His legacy is the thousands of people who he helped to gain control of clean water and humanitarian help. For this is what Ben was, a combatant for peace, dedicated to helping his fellow man find peace in this world, even though he wore an Army uniform at times. He led people with a passionate soul, and that drew others to want to do the same. His parents, Gary and Laura, his sister Anna, brother Samuel and fiancée Beth Segaloff survive him. Ben is buried at Farband Cemetery in Morris, Connecticut.

The Captain Benjamin Andrew Sklaver by Freedom Remembered, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.