In Memoriam

[Grace]

29 January 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Jan. 29 in Helmand province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 264th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 82nd Sustainment Brigade, Fort Bragg, N.C.

Killed were:

Spc. Joshua R. Campbell, 22, of Bennett, Colo.; and

Spc. Shawn A. Muhr, 26, of Coon Rapids, Iowa.

[Grace]

31 January 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spc. Omar Soltero, 28, of San Antonio, Texas, died Jan. 31 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Polk, La.

[Grace]

1 February 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spec. Ryan A. Gartner, 23, of Dumont, N.J., died Feb. 1 in Bagram, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained in a non-combat incident. He was assigned to the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, Ft. Sam Houston, Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.

[Grace]

Australia

Cpl. Richard Atkinson

From: Hobart, Australia
Age: 22
Unit: 1st Combat Engineer Regiment
Died: February 1, 2011

Killed when a roadside bomb detonated during a joint Australian-Afghan patrol in the Tangi Valley of the Deh Rawod district of Uruzgan province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

Northern Ireland

Ranger David Dalzell

From: Bangor, County Down
Age: 20
Unit: Company A, 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment
Died: February 4, 2011

Died as a result of an operational accident while working in Check Point Ranger near the village of Saidabad in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

England

Warrant Officer Class 2 Colin Beckett

From: Peterborough, England
Age: 36
Unit: Company sergeant major, Company C, 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment
Died: February 5, 2011

Killed when a roadside bomb detonated as he was moving into position to cover his fellow patrol members near Shaheed, a village on the Nahr-e Bughra canal in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

5 February 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Cpl. Lucas T. Pyeatt, 24, of West Chester, Ohio, died Feb. 5 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[Grace]

7 February 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Aaron M. Swanson, 21, of Jamestown, N.Y., died Feb. 7 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve, Buffalo, N.Y.

[phesina]

Thank you for keeping this memorial thread going, Gretchen, and for including their photographs now too. God bless you and them.

I check it every day. How much longer, how many more?

[Grace]

7 February 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Patrick R. Carroll, 25, of Norwalk, Ohio, died Feb. 7 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 319th Military Intelligence Battalion, 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, N.C.

[Grace]

World War II

Airmen Missing in Action From WWII Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of 11 U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces Technical Sgt. Charles A. Bode, 23, Baltimore, will be buried on Feb. 11 in Arlington National Cemetery. On Nov. 20, 1943, Bode, along with 10 other B-24D Liberator crew members, took off from Jackson Airfield, Port Moresby, New Guinea, on an overwater mission near the northern coast of the country. During the mission, the only radio transmission from the crew indicated they were 20 miles northwest of Port Moresby, but they did not return to Jackson Airfield. Subsequent searches failed to uncover any evidence of either the crew or the aircraft.

Following the war, the Army Graves Registration Service conducted investigations and searches for 43 missing airmen including Bode and the other 10 airmen, but concluded in June 1949 that all were unrecoverable.

In 1984, the government of Papua New Guinea notified U.S. officials of a World War II crash site in a ravine in Morobe Province. A U.S. search and recovery team investigated the crash site in late 1984 and located B-24 aircraft wreckage. They also recovered human remains but were unable to complete the mission due to time constraints and the threat of landslides. From that time until 2004, multiple teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) attempted to access and excavate the location but the threat of landslides made recovery too dangerous to continue. During a site visit in 2004, local villagers turned over human remains they had previously removed from the area.

In addition to Bode’s individual burial, the crew -

1st Lt. Richard T. Heuss, 23, Berkley, Mich.;
2nd Lt. Robert A. Miller, 22, Memphis, Tenn.;
2nd Lt. Edward R. French, 23, Erie, Pa.;
2nd Lt. Robert R. Streckenbach, Jr., 21, Green Bay, Wis.;
Tech. Sgt. Lucian I. Oliver, Jr., 23 Memphis, Tenn.;
Staff Sgt. Ivan O. Kirkpatrick, 36, Whittier, Calif
Staff Sgt. William K. Musgrave, 24, Hutsonville, Ill.;
Staff Sgt. James T. Moran, 21, Sloatsburg, N.Y.;
Staff Sgt. James B. Moore, 21, Woburn, Mass.;
and Staff Sgt. Roy Surabian, 24, Medford, Mass.,

will be buried as a group on March 24 at Arlington National Cemetery.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Bode’s remains.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 74,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.

[Grace]

8 February 2011

HARROD, Ohio — A 32-year-old Ohio soldier who family members say enlisted only last year has been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

The military said in a statement Thursday that Army Spc. Nathan B. Carse died Tuesday of wounds from the improvised explosive device in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

Carse was from Harrod in northwest Ohio. His sister, Kristin Purdy, tells The Lima News her brother earned a master's degree in engineering and was working in that field in Louisiana last year when he told the family he wanted to take his life in a "different route." Carse's father had served in the military, as a Green Beret.

The Pentagon says Carse was assigned to the 2nd Engineer Battalion, 176th Engineer Brigade, out of White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

___

Information from: The Lima News, http://www.limanews.com

[Grace]

England

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that Private Lewis Hendry, from 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, and Private Conrad Lewis, from 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, were killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday 9 February 2011.

Ministry of Defence statement

[Grace]

Finland

1st Lt. Jukka Tapio Kansonen

From: Kotka, Finland
Age: 36
Unit: Kotkan Rannikkopataljoona (Kotka Coastal Command Battalion)
Died: February 15, 2011

Killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his armored vehicle while his unit was traveling to firearms training nine miles (14.5 kilometers) southeast of Aybak in Samangan province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

New Zealand

A soldier from New Zealand was killed in a road crash while on patrol in Afghanistan, Defence Force officials said Wednesday.

He is the second trooper to die while on assignment with the country's forces there.

Private Kirifi Mila was killed and three others were injured when their Humvee ran off the road and rolled down a steep, 100-foot (30 metre) cliff while on patrol in the northeastern Bamiyan province.

Mila was standing in the vehicle's turret when the accident occurred, joint forces commander Peter Stockwell said.

The Ferosok area where the crash happened was "very dangerous," he said, and the Defence Force was "100 per cent confident" it was not caused by an insurgent attack.

Prime Minister John Key expressed his condolences to the Mila family.

"To have one of our own die in a road crash is heartbreaking news," he said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard expressed her country's condolences when she addressed the New Zealand Parliament on Wednesday morning — the first foreign leader accorded the privilege.

Last August, Lt. Tim O'Donnell, 28, became New Zealand's first combat death since the country sent troops to Afghanistan in 2003. O'Donnell was killed in an insurgent ambush while on patrol in Bamiyan province.

In addition to O'Donnell and Mila, four soldiers from New Zealand have died in Afghanistan while serving in other countries' forces.