The Pentagon announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
“Operation Enduring Freedom” (OEF) is the official code name used by the U.S. government for the War in Afghanistan.
According to the release:
“Sgt. First Class William K. Lacey, 38, of Laurel, Fla., died Jan. 4, 2014, in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when the enemy attacked his unit with rocket propelled grenades.
Lacey was assigned to 201st Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Knox, Ky.
For more information, media may contact the Fort Knox public affairs office at 502-624-3051” (source: DOD: http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=16462
As mentioned in the release this soldier died from a “rocket propelled grenade.”
A rocket-propelled grenade (often abbreviated RPG) is a shoulder-fired, anti-tank weapon system that fires rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor and stabilized in flight with fins.
The most common types of warheads are high explosive (HE) or high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds. Needless to say they can cause a lot of damage not only to military vehicles but the human body as well, because they often “splinter” in many cases with razor sharp minute shards of metal which fly everywhere.
When deployed against personnel, the warhead can be aimed at a solid surface to detonate; popular choices being trees or buildings. Another option is an indirect method of firing the warhead over the intended target area at ranges of 800–1000 m where the warhead would detonate automatically. More skilled shooters can use the RPG self-destruct feature to make it explode over the enemy at closer range. When used in this fashion, the RPG is being used almost like an artillery weapon.
This was this particular soldiers fifth deployment overall (three in Iraq) and second in Afghanistan, according to Fort Knox public affairs, who refused to discuss anything more, except to say that Lacey, from Laurel, Fla., was a vehicle mechanic assigned to the 201st Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Knox.
Nangarhar shares a border with neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, and the two regions share very close ties, with significant travel and commerce in both directions.
Khyber Paktunhwa borders the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to the west and south, Gilgit–Baltistan to the north-east, Azad Kashmir to the east, Punjab and the Islamabad Capital Territory to the south-east, and Afghanistan to the north-west.
It is a well known al-Qaeda and Taliban safe haven and hideout (and drug smuggling route) – where insurgents slip back and forth with impunity often times to conduct hit and run raids against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Once in Pakistan the insurgents are protected in many ways by Pakistani military forces which refuse to route or allow American or coalition forces to enter to conduct combat operations.
Oddly enough his death marks the first combat loss of 2014 for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, according to the Stars and Stripes. Which we reported earlier as Sgt Jacob M. Hess, U.S.M.C., who death was reported Jan. 1 and now being termed “a non combat fatality” apparently by the DOD, which earlier refused to put it into those terms – which strikes me as unusual?
That incident is currently “under investigation”, officials are still however refusing to say exactly how he died?
This is disconcerting in the sense that without the exact cause of death in this case we are unable to hold military leader accountable if commanders unintentionally or knowingly acted irresponsibly and put this particular Marine life in danger.
For more information on Sgt. Hess see report (https://groundreport.com/sgt-jacob-hess-killed-or-murdered-in-afghanistan-pentagon-purposefully-vague-on-his-exact-cause-of-death/).