Former presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, announced Thursday that her oldest brother, Don Reed Herring, died of the coronavirus on Tuesday. He was 86.
Mr. Herring was a veteran of the Air Force and spent more than five years serving in Vietnam, seeing some combat there. Mrs. Warren remembered him as “charming and funny, a natural leader.”
“What made him extra special was his smile — quick and crooked, it always seemed to generate its own light, one that lit up everyone around him,” the senator wrote on Twitter.
She thanked the health care workers who took care of Mr. Herring in Oklahoma, the family’s home state, and said no one from the family was allowed to be by his side when he died because of hospitals’ rules related to the pandemic.
The Boston Globe reported that Mr. Herring tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, three weeks ago. Mr. Herring and one of his brothers, John Herring, were Republicans who Mrs. Warren said on the campaign trail did not always agree with her on political matters, but shared some beliefs, like believing large corporations should pay more in taxes.
Mrs. Warren suspended her presidential campaign in March and has since endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Joseph R. Biden.
My oldest brother, Don Reed, died from coronavirus on Tuesday evening. He joined the Air Force at 19 and spent his career in the military, including five and a half years off and on in combat in Vietnam. He was charming and funny, a natural leader. https://t.co/b8m0xKzAmM
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 23, 2020
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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