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Navajo lance corporal killed
in Afghanistan
The Associated
Press .
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz.
— A Marine from the small Navajo community of Rock Point has
died in Afghanistan, community members and the Department of
Defense say.
The remains of
Lance Cpl. Alejandro Yazzie, 23, arrived Thursday at Dover Air
Force Base, Del.
Yazzie, assigned to
the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 1st Combat Engineer
Battalion, died Tuesday while supporting combat operations in
Helmand province, according to a Defense Department release.
A Marine prepares to search an
Afghan man as
Lance Cpl. Alejandro Yazzie (right)
stands guard.
Yazzie was killed six hours after
this photo was taken
Tribal officials
say Yazzie was a 2004 graduate of Rock Point High School and
is survived by his parents, three brothers, a sister and his
grandmother.
No additional
details on his history of service were immediately available.
According to tribal
statistics, 11 Navajos serving in either Iraq or Afghanistan
have been killed.
A Burst Of Gunfire, And A
Marine Lost In Marjah
by
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123898317
February 19, 2010
Forcing hundreds of
Taliban fighters out of a key stronghold in southern
Afghanistan is proving far more difficult than expected for
thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers. The militants
are using roadside bombs and snipers to slow the joint force
to a crawl during the week-old offensive in the
Taliban-controlled area called Marjah, in Helmand province.
That's what
happened Tuesday to a Marine and Afghan patrol tasked with
moving the front line deeper into the militant stronghold.
NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, who was with the patrol, reports
their efforts came at a painful price.
U.S. Marines from
India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment are itching
to move out.
They drape extra
ammunition belts over their shoulders. They check their
weapons. They wait impatiently for Afghan soldiers to join
them on the patrol, who are hours late.
The joint patrol
finally heads out at about 2 p.m. Marines with portable
minesweepers walk ahead, clearing a path for the armored
vehicles rumbling behind. American and Afghan troops fan out
over wheat and opium poppy fields.
Their objective on
this sunny afternoon seems modest: push south about a mile
from their base in northwestern Marjah.
1st Lt. Justin Gray
leads India Company's 2nd Platoon.
"We're going to
speak with the locals, find out what we can do for them, and
basically give them the advice of, 'Hey, you don't want to get
caught in the crossfire.' Because there is going to be
fighting. The Taliban wants to fight us and we want them out
of Marjah, so it's best for locals to just get out of town,"
Gray says.
The locals have
already obliged. As the Marines and their Afghan army
counterparts advance, compound after compound that they search
is empty.
In fact, the whole
village seems abandoned. There is no sign of the turbaned
farmers who toil in the fields, or women in brightly colored
tunics who wash clothes and dishes in the fast-flowing canal.
There are no children playing on the dirt streets.
Yet the patrol is
not alone. Like villains in a video game, Taliban militants in
black tunics pop up on rooftops, from behind mud walls or in
trenches.
They fire at the
patrol with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. The Marines
return fire. Capt. Jordan Condo barks orders for his men to
direct their attention to a building and suppress the gunfire
coming their way, but the militants then disappear.
Condo, who is with
the Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, gets bad news over the
radio from a support aircraft overhead. The surveillance has
spotted a person with a rocket-propelled grenade moving north.
Gray suggests a
quick fix: "OK, let's blow them up before they can establish
that ambush site. Hey, easy day."
Condo receives
approval for Harrier jets to carry out Hellfire missile
attacks.
The attacks destroy
the ambush site. Condo says the militants are badly wounded or
dead.
"[That's] good for
us, because we would have eventually met that ambush site," he
says.
Still, the
encounters with the Taliban take their toll.
Just before sunset,
the patrol leaders call it a night; it's too dangerous to push
on.
The Marines and
Afghans have barely covered a half-mile in nearly four hours.
They approach a field near an empty mosque, searching for a
place to set up camp.
Three militants
hiding nearby train their weapons on the approaching group.
As gunfire erupts,
the Marines and Afghans take cover, crouching behind mounds of
dirt. They return fire.
Among them is Lance
Cpl. Alejandro Yazzie, a combat engineer from Rock Point,
Ariz.
Automatic weapons
fire rattles and the Marines shout as the firefight unfolds,
when Yazzie is hit.
"Corpsman up!
Corpsman up!" Marines yell, calling for a medic.
Condo shouts, "Hey,
we got a KIA, KIA."
Yazzie is the KIA,
or killed in action. A bullet struck him in the head, killing
him almost instantly.
The 23-year-old is
the first Marine in this battalion to die in the offensive.
Yazzie had planned to call his wife on my satellite phone that
night.
The Marines go
after the Taliban gunmen. Condo again calls for air support.
This time, two Cobra helicopter gunships respond with rounds
and rounds of fire.
But the gunships
hit the wrong trench. They leave to refuel as darkness falls.
Yazzie's body is
gently placed in the back of an armored vehicle. He is driven
back to company headquarters to begin the trip home, a half a
world away. 
Yazzie's coffin
arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Thursday. The
AP reports that funeral arrangements are pending in his Navajo
community in Arizona.
A team of
Marines carries the transfer case containing the remains of
Yazzie upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on
Thursday.
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