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Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom
Began Oct. 7, 2001. In all, more than 1,750 troops have been killed, 97 of them with ties to Washington. (Updated September 2, 2011)
(Information compiled from military and media.)
1,727th to die: August 6, 2011 – Army Spc. Alexander Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, was killed with 29 other American service members and seven Afghan soldiers when Taliban fighters fired a rocket at their CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Wardak province, Afghanistan. The attack brought the single largest loss of life for American service members in any one incident in the Afghanistan War. Among the dead were 22 members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6, who had been dispatched to help Army Rangers in a firefight. Bennett, a member of the helicopter crew, was assigned to the Army Reserve’s 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment out of New Century Air Center southwest of Kansas City, Mo. His mother Kim Robertson said she couldn’t imagine her son pursuing any other life than the one he made as a soldier, a job he dreamed of growing up in Tacoma. "It was almost like he was born to take that path," she said Bennett attended Foss and Curtis high schools before joining the Army. He was remembered by his family and friends as a jokester with a mischevious grin. "Alex was the gutsiest soldier I have ever met," said Sgt. Matthew Martinez of Poulsbo, who served with Bennett in Iraq. He "was always on the verge of getting in trouble. With all the things you go through when you’re on a deployment, he kept me going when he didn’t even know I was watching him. I’ll spend the rest of my career as a Chinook backseater trying to live up to him."
1,667th to die: July 15, 2011 – Army Staff Sgt. Wyatt A. Goldsmith, 28, of Colville, Stevens County, died of injuries sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with rocket-propelled grenades in Helmad province, Afghanistan. A decorated combat medic, he was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Born in Redmond, Goldsmith moved with his family to Colville as a sixth grader. He graduated from Colville High School in 2001, later working as a parking lot attendant, ski lift operator, and as a ski patroller. He joined the Army in 2004 as a Special Forces recruit. During one of several tours overseas, Goldsmith suffered a gunshot wound to his foot during a late-night firefight. The Army says he tended to six injured Afghan troops before being forced to seek medical help for his own injury. Nothing was more important to Goldsmith "than fighting alongside his buddies and saving people’s lives," Staff Sgt. Robert Cogan said. "He died doing both."
1,597th to die: May 29, 2011 – Army Capt. Joseph W. Schultz, 36, of Port Angeles, was killed in Wardak province, Afghanistan, while on a mounted patrol when the vehicle he and his Special Forces team were traveling in struck a bomb. Schultz, who was married and had also served in Iraq, was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C. His mother, Betsy Reed Schultz of Port Angeles, says her son grew up in Sacramento and graduated from the University of Oregon with bachelor's degrees in political science and economics. Bonnie Kuchler, a family friend, said "Just everything about the way he talked, he held himself - it was just obvious" he was a natural leader. He was honored in a memorial event by the California legislature, where Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez recalled that Schultz joined the service after 9/11, giving up a promising political career that included working for Gov. Gray Davis and President Bill Clinton.
1,588th to die: May 26, 2011 – Army Spc. Adam J. Patton, 21, of Port Orchard, and five other soldiers died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked their unit with a bomb in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. They were assigned to the 4th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. The troops weree investigating a trailer in a field and as they touched down in their helicopter the bomb exploded, the Army said. His family said Patton was excited to join the Army three years after graduating from Kitsap High School's ROTC program. "He was really into sports, He enjoyed soccer. He was in the ROTC program at the high school the whole time he was there," his stepfather Craig Kottre said. Patton’s first deployment was in 2009 and his mother recalls that he was concerned about his return to Afghanistan in late 2010. He told her "where he wanted to be buried and who he wanted his truck to go to," Sandi Kottre said. "When you see a man or woman in uniform," she added in an interview, noting her son died just before Memorial Day 2011, "tell them thank you."
