The status of a soldier who had been listed as missing has been changed to killed in action, the Defense Department announced Tuesday night.
Army Staff Sgt. William D. Vile, 27, of Philadelphia, was killed on May 1 near the village of Nishagam in eastern Afghanistan when insurgents attacked Afghan and international forces with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenade strikes, officials said.
Sgt. James. D. Pirtle, 24, of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Spc. Ryan C. King, 22, of Dallas, Ga., were also killed in the attack.
The Army initially listed Vile as “Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown,” a designation used when the unit’s commander believes a servicemember has been killed but cannot positively identify or locate the body, according to the Defense Department’s directive on casualty notifications.
Earlier on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan said the Army was in the process of identifying what it believed to be Vile’s remains pending a DNA analysis.
“There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that they were in fact his remains,” said Army Maj. Jennifer Willis.
She said she expected to know the results of DNA testing on the remains within 24 hours.
Army casualty officers delivered a “believed to be” notification to Vile’s family over the weekend, said Shari Lawrence, of Army Human Resources Command.
While officially the Army could not say that Vile was killed, the somewhat unusual step allowed family members to travel to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the return of the remains.
“Obviously, we do everything we can to keep the family up to date,” she said. “We want to help them as much as possible.”
Vile was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division from Fort Riley, Kan. Pirtle and King were assigned to the Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in Fort Hood, Texas.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Vile attended Lincoln High School from 1995 to 1999 and is a graduate of the “Warrior Leader Course” with the 10th Mountain Division.
Pirtle’s mother, Patricia, was told about her son’s death by an Army chaplain last Friday, The Gazette in Colorado Springs reported.
The Gazette reported that Pirtle was a 2006 graduate of the Globe Charter School and enlisted in the Army immediately after he graduated despite his mother’s concerns. His mother told The Gazette that he was patriotic and he advanced through the ranks rapidly. Friends described him as a joker who always had a smile on his face and tried to get them to enlist as well.
Stripes reporters Leo Shane III and Jeff Schogol contributed to this report
