HM3 JAMES R. LAYTON KIA in AFGHANISTAN 08 SEPT 2009.

ALCON,

This one is rough, they all are, but this one has a story that has hit the press recently.

I am attaching the story from the Modesto Bee to this email.

I will be posting a story announcing HM3 Layton’s passing later today.

HM3 James Ray Layton

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A Riverbank sailor was killed Tuesday in an ambush in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense announced this morning.

Petty Officer 3rd Class James R. Layton, 22, died in Kunar Province while supporting combat operations. He was assigned to an embedded training team with Combined Security Transition Command in Afghanistan.

Layton’s death was described by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Jonathan Landay, who was embedded with a group of Marines and pinned down by heavy fire in a rugged section of Kunar Province on Tuesday.

The story appeared on the front page of The Modesto Bee on Wednesday:

“The Marines were cut down as they sought cover in a trench at the base of the village’s first layer cake-style stone house. Much of their ammunition was gone. One Marine (later determined to be Layton) was bending over a second, tending his wounds, when both were killed, said Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 21, of Greensburg, Ky., who retrieved their bodies.”

Layton is the 28th soldier or Marine from the Northern San Joaquin Valley and foothills killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the first from Riverbank.

Editor’s note: Read Landay’s account of the deaths of Layton and three others by clicking on the story link at left or by clicking here.

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/848962.html

Our hearts and prayers go out to HM3’s family, Marines, Shipmates, and friends.

Da-Chief