CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Three Okinawa-based Marines and a Navy corpsman were identified as the four servicemembers killed in an ambush Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan, the Defense Department reported Thursday.
Listed as killed are Gunnery Sgt. Edwin W. Johnson, 31, of Columbus, Ga.; 1st Lt. Michael E. Johnson, 25, of Virginia Beach, Va.; Staff Sgt. Aaron M. Kenefick, of Roswell, Ga.; and Petty Officer 3rd Class James A. Layton, 22, of Riverbank, Calif.
All four were assigned to an embedded training team with the Combined Security Transition Command, which trains and equips Afghan security forces, in the Sarkani District of Kunar province.
Their deaths marked the largest number of U.S. servicemembers assigned as Afghan National Army trainers killed in a single incident since the country was invaded in 2001 to uproot terrorists and oust the Taliban-led government.
The four deployed from the 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa. Layton went to Afghanistan in July, according to Marine Corps Bases Japan Consolidated Public Affairs. Kenefick and Gunnery Sgt. Johnson were assigned to Combat Assault Battalion and deployed to Afghanistan in April.
First Lt. Johnson was assigned to the 7th Communications Battalion, III Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group. A platoon commander, he also deployed to Afghanistan in July.
Media reports said Layton was administering aid to one of the wounded Marines when both were killed by snipers. Kenefick, according to reports, had been wounded by shrapnel last weekend, but remained with the unit.
“Their loss is deeply felt by Combat Assault Battalion,” Lt. Col. Daniel L. Yaroslaski, Commanding Officer, Combat Assault Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, said in a statement released to Stars and Stripes. “Our hearts go out to their families and loved ones.”
According to a McClatchy Newspapers reporter accompanying the unit, the group of some 60 Afghan soldiers, 20 border police officers and 13 Americans walked into an ambush about dawn as they approached a village close to the Pakistan border.
The incident remains under investigation, according to the Pentagon, but reporter Jonathan S. Landay wrote that requests for supporting artillery fire were denied and air power was delayed.
“U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village,” Landay wrote in a story that also appeared in Stars and Stripes.
The Pentagon disputed the report.
“It did take some time for close air support to arrive in this case, but that is not a result of more restrictive conditions in which it can be used,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said in a briefing Wednesday. “It was a result, as is often the case in Afghanistan, of the fact that there are great distances, often, between bases where such assets are located and where our troops are out operating.
“That’s just the nature of the beast in Afghanistan.”
