3 soldiers killed in Afghan attack were from Ohio

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

JOHN SEEWER

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Three U.S. sol­diers killed in a sui­cide attack this week in Afghanistan were from Ohio, as were sev­eral oth­ers seri­ously wounded in the bomb­ing, the Ohio National Guard said Thursday.

The sol­diers killed in the attack Wednes­day in Maimanah, the cap­i­tal of Faryab province, were from the Guard’s 37th Infantry Brigade Com­bat Team, accord­ing to the Ohio Adju­tant General’s Department.

The brigade is based in Colum­bus but includes sol­diers from across Ohio, the Guard said.

Among the vic­tims was Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Han­non, 44, who also worked as chief legal coun­sel for the Ohio Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Services.

“Shawn felt it was a priv­i­lege to serve his coun­try and did so hon­or­ably for almost 20 years. He was proud to be a sol­dier and all who loved him knew it,” his fam­ily said in a state­ment released to media. Sur­vivors include wife and their 9-month-old son.

Han­non joined the state vet­er­ans agency last year after work­ing for a Colum­bus law firm.

“He was one of the most well respected guys I ever met,” said Steve Palmer, a lawyer who worked with Han­non. “If some­body in the world needed help, he’d be there. He believed in what he was doing over there.”

The attack, by a sui­cide bomber on a motor­cy­cle, killed at least 13 peo­ple Wednes­day at a park in a rel­a­tively peace­ful area of north­ern Afghanistan. It was part of an increase in vio­lence at the start of the spring fight­ing season.

The Tal­iban has claimed respon­si­bil­ity. The bomber’s tar­get was unclear.

The attacks appear to be part of an increase in vio­lence. The Tal­iban are tar­get­ing Afghan and NATO secu­rity forces as they fight to assert their power and under­mine U.S. efforts to try to build up the Afghan military.

This week, gun­men also attacked an out­post of a government-sponsored mili­tia and killed 10 mem­bers of the secu­rity force, and another sui­cide bomber killed two peo­ple and wounded 16 oth­ers Thursday.

The Ohio infantry brigade has six bat­tal­ions, with four based in Ohio and two in Michi­gan. It sent 3,600 sol­diers to Afghanistan last sum­mer for what was sched­uled to be a year-long deployment.

It was the largest mobi­liza­tion for the 37th since the Korean War, accord­ing to the Ohio National Guard. The sol­diers were sent to help with counter-insurgency oper­a­tions and work with Afghan secu­rity forces.

In 2005, Lima Com­pany, a Columbus-based Marine reserve unit, lost 22 Marines and a Navy Corps­man in Iraq, includ­ing nine in one bomb­ing. Fif­teen of the 23 were from Ohio.

The names of the other dead sol­diers had not been released; the Guard said it was still noti­fy­ing fam­ily members.

Another Ohio sol­dier was killed this week by a road­side bomb in Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Christo­pher Brown, 26, of Colum­bus, died Tues­day, the Depart­ment of Defense said Thurs­day. Brown was serv­ing his sec­ond tour of duty in Afghanistan, after spend­ing nearly year in Iraq.

Posted by AP News on Apr 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.