The resignation of Joe Kent, former director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, appears to have personal tragedy at its core. Kent, who opposed the war in Iran, stated:
“I cannot support sending the next generation to fight and die in a war that provides no benefit to the American people nor justifies the human cost.”

Behind his grief was the loss of his wife, with whom he had two sons.

Shannon Kent

In 2019, Shannon Kent was killed in an ISIS suicide attack in Manbij, northern Syria. Alongside her, three other Americans and about 15 Kurdish soldiers and civilians lost their lives.

She was a cryptography technician serving in the U.S. Navy, one of the few women operating on the front lines with Special Forces in the Middle East. A dynamic woman in a male-dominated field, Kent had extensive experience abroad.

Born in 1983 in New York, she joined the Navy in 2003. Her father, a police officer, and her uncle, a firefighter, had participated in early 9/11 rescue efforts, inspiring Kent to enlist alongside her brother, a Marine.

Fluent in seven languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Arabic, she advanced quickly in her career as a cryptographer at Fort Meade, Maryland.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which was successfully treated surgically. She later served in Iraq alongside Iraqi forces, helping to locate combatants in highly dangerous, minimally covered, and highly classified operations.

Two years later, she was deployed to Afghanistan to support a SEAL team, becoming one of the few women in the elite unit. She met Joe Kent during selection for the Intelligence Support Activity, a Special Forces support group, and they married in 2014.

In November 2018, she was deployed to Syria as a Navy cryptographer. Tragically, she was killed there on January 19, 2019, in Manbij. Their sons were three years old and 18 months old at the time. After her death, Shannon Kent was posthumously promoted and awarded medals.

Joe Kent’s Life After Shannon

In the following years, Kent frequently spoke about his wife’s impact and the effect of her death, drawing from his own 20 years in the military with 11 combat deployments. He wrote a book about her life titled “Send Me: The True Story of a Mother at War.”

Kent remarried in 2023 to Heather Kaiser, an artist and Army veteran. By 2024, having left the military, he focused on national issues, citing disagreements over COVID-19 management, pandemic unrest in Portland, and anger toward certain Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in his first term as motivators for his congressional run.

Kent ran twice for Congress in Washington State’s 3rd District as a conservative, pro-Trump candidate but lost both times (2022 and 2024) to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez.