The U.S. military command in Afghanistan on Thursday released the names of the two Marines killed May 8 and gave more details of the firefight that led to their deaths.

Lance Cpl. Nicholas C. Kirven and Cpl. Richard P. Schoener were both assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, deployed from Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

The Marine unit, from the III Marine Expeditionary Force, claims to have killed 15 insurgents and captured six others in the five-hour gunfight in Lagham province, east of Kabul. According to Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, the battle began when Marines, acting on unspecified intelligence, attacked a group of fighters waiting to ambush a U.S. patrol.

“Initial reports from a U.S. Air Force aircraft surveying the area estimated that 24 insurgents had been killed in the incident. The Marine unit involved has confirmed 15 dead insurgents and six wounded insurgents from the incident,” a U.S. military release said.

“The wounded insurgents are being treated at coalition medical facilities and will be maintained in coalition custody until they are no longer a threat to Afghan and Coalition forces operating in the area.”

The two Marines were killed when they pursued the insurgents into a nearby cave complex. U.S. aircraft bombed the caves, and the Marines were clearing them when fighting erupted again.

After the battle, officials said, unit commanders visited local villages to get information about the insurgents. One injured man in the custody of an Afghan police station was handed over to U.S. forces, officials said.

Friends and family of the two dead Marines mourned them this week after news reached their hometowns.

Kirven, 21, of Richmond, Va., was remembered as a “big-hearted” young man who found direction in the Marine Corps, according to The Washington Post.

“I’m still thinking of the college thing next fall but not sure where,” he wrote. “Given my grades in high school, I might have to start small. ... I’ve now gained the maturity and discipline needed to excel in school. I doubt I would have done well at 18,” he wrote in one of his final letters home that the family shared with the newspaper.

Kirven was set to rotate home within a month.

Schoener, 22, was a native of Hayes, La.

His family had just returned from a camping trip Sunday night when three Marines in dress uniforms showed up at their front door, family members told The Associated Press.

The family immediately thought the worst.

Schoener had graduated high school with honors in 2001 before joining the Marines after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, family members said.