Though Tanya Tanwar Sareen’s brother died in 2015, she feels he had a hand in introducing her to her future husband.
“Taj helped put us in each other’s path,” she said. “He probably got tired of my making bad decisions,” she added with a laugh.
Maj. Taj Sareen, a jet pilot in the Marine Corps, was killed when the aircraft he was piloting crashed on his way back from deployment in the Persian Gulf.
In November 2021, a group of Major Sareen’s former squadron mates came to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Allen Szczepek, a retired lieutenant colonel, reached out to Ms. Sareen in advance to arrange a visit with her family, and she flew in to join them. (Her parents split their time between Las Vegas and Hillsborough, Calif., where she lived.)
After the visit, the men invited Ms. Sareen to join them at a nearby bar. She chose Clique, a lounge in the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas hotel, and it was there that Ms. Sareen and Joel Gregory Adolphson, a lieutenant colonel who had served with Major Sareen in San Diego, fell into an easy rapport.
Colonel Adolphson approached with trepidation: The squadron mates had all agreed Ms. Sareen was off limits out of respect for her brother. In fact, Colonel Szczepek whispered a reminder of this into Colonel Adolphson’s ear as the two were talking.
