Mike Pence quieted the crowd in Carson City, Nevada, that was booing a women named Catherine Byrne who asked Pence about Donald Trump's treatment of members of the military on Aug. 1. | AP Photo Mother of service member booed over Khan question at Pence rally

CARSON CITY, Nevada — The woman, in a quiet voice, stood before the crowd of hundreds at a town hall-style event here with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and announced that her son serves in the Air Force. The crowd applauded.

But then the woman said, “Time and time again, [Donald] Trump has disrespected our nation’s armed forces and veterans. And his disrespect for Mr. Khan … ”


The reaction of the crowd was immediate and fierce, drowning out her words.

The crowd began to boo as she tried to get through her question. The woman, who was subsequently identified as Catherine Byrne of Carson City, continued to speak through the jeers.

“Why are you here?” one woman shouted as the boos rained down.

But, over the boos and taunts, Byrne continued to speak.

“You’ve got a son in the military, how do you tolerate this disrespect?” she asked Pence.

Finally, after allowing the boos to continue for about 10 seconds, Pence moved to quiet the crowd.

“That’s OK,” he said. Trump's running mate then repeated a line he deployed when confronted by protesters in Ohio last week: “That's what freedom looks like, and that's what freedom sounds like.”



Pence responded by praising the fallen Capt. Humayun Khan and his family. Khan's parents, Khizr and Ghazala, have been in the news since speaking last week at the Democratic National Convention and finding themselves criticized by Trump.

“Capt. Khan is an American hero and we honor him and honor his family,” he said. “The story of Capt. Khan is an incredibly inspiring story.”

But Pence went on to defend Trump.

“I have never been around someone more devoted to the armed forces of this country,” Pence said of Trump. There is “no one more devoted to the veterans in this country.”

He then moved on to saying he and Trump would work to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Speaking later, Byrne said her son is Staff Sgt. Raymond T. Harmon of the U.S. Air Force. She said Harmon "is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf. He has been serving in the military since 2008."

She said: "It was supposed to be a town-hall-style event."

Denise Martinez, 57, said she had been among those booing Byrne. She admired how Pence handled the situation.

“I thought he handled it really, really well,” she said. “Looking back, I think I would’ve taken the high road.”

“He handled it the right way, the way I wish Trump would have,” she added.

Other audience members were less forgiving.

Barbara Weisenthal, 56, said she was among those booing and that Khizr Khan did not have the “right” to say what he did about Trump at the convention. His speech “was almost like slander,” she said.

Of Byrne who asked the question, Weisenthal said it was “probably not the best place to do that.”

Jack Christenson, himself a veteran, said Byrne may have had the right to ask her question, but not “to violate everyone else’s rights,” which he said she did by speaking out at the event.

“She was claiming that Trump was somehow insulting the veterans,” said Roen Horn, 29. He called that idea “a bunch of crap.”

“She was politicizing the veterans,” she said. “She had an agenda.”



At a rally in Reno later Monday, Pence went out of his way to praise Capt. Khan.

“Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero,” Pence said to applause, as a man in the audience shouted: “Yes he is!”

“And Captain Khan and his family, like all Gold Star families, should always be cherished by all the people of the United States,” Pence said. He went on to praise the fallen Marine Brandon Dewey, who was killed in Iraq in 2006 and whose parents were present at the rally.

But he also took aim at the media coverage surrounding Khan’s family, and what he described as insufficient attention to the Benghazi victims’ families.

“I want to say from my heart as the father of a United States Marine, I understand — I understand and appreciate the attention being paid to Captain Khan’s family,” he said. “What I don’t understand is why the media maligned and continues to ignore the grieving mother of fallen Air Force veteran and diplomat Sean Smith” who was killed in the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. Smith’s mother, Patricia Smith, spoke at the Republican National Convention.

“Let’s demand that the national media listen to and honor all of the families of the fallen,” he said.

David Cohen contributed to this article.