The Defense Department released on Tuesday the names of the three U.S. Marines who were killed in action by a car bomb attack on a convoy in Afghanistan on Monday near Bagram Air Base, a major part of U.S. operations in that country. The Taliban took credit for the attack, even as the U.S. holds talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
The Marines who lost their lives were: Cpl. Robert Hendriks, 25, from Locust Valley, N.Y.; Sgt. Benjamin Hines, 31, from York, Pa.; and Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, 43, from Newark, Del.
The Marines died on April 8 while conducting combat operations in Parwan Province, Afghanistan. The Department of Defense said all three Marines were assigned to 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division.
The Marines were serving as part of what is known as the Georgia Deployment Program-Resolute Support Mission, a reoccurring, six-month rotation between U.S. Marines and coalition partners in the Georgian Armed Forces that assists NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, according to a statement from the Marine Forces Reserve.
Hendricks deployed to the country of Georgia in late July 2018 through the beginning of October that year before shipping off to Afghanistan. Military records indicate that he was an infantry machine gunner by specialty.
Both Hines and Slutman participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom from between 2008 and 2009. Like Hendricks, they also deployed to Georgia in 2018 before serving in Afghanistan. Records show Hines’ specialty was as an infantry rifleman; Slutman was as an infantry rifleman.
Monday was the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since November.
“Our focus in the wake of this attack is to support the family, friends, and loved ones of our fallen Marines,” Maj. Roger Hollenbeck of the Marines Forces Reserve told the Washington Examiner. “These Marines are honored for their extraordinary bravery and for their direct contribution to the defense of this nation.”
“We feel and mourn the loss of these Americans with their families and loved ones,” said Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the commander of the Resolute Support mission and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. “They volunteered to protect their country. We will continue our mission.”
Speaking with Bret Baier on Fox News on Tuesday evening, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan talked about the deaths of the three Marines. “This is the hardest part of my job. I send my condolences to the families and the friends of those service members who lost their lives. They gave the ultimate sacrifice for which we can never repay,” he said.
The names of the service members who were killed in action had been withheld from the public for 24 hours to allow the next of kin to be notified, per normal Defense Department policy. Another three U.S. service members were also wounded in the blast. One Afghan contractor who was originally reported dead by the U.S. military was later determined to be alive.
The Department of Defense previously reported that the wounded service members are undergoing medical treatment.
The service members killed this week who were part of the NATO-led mission dubbed Operation Resolute Support were the fifth, sixth, and seventh U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2019.
Spc. Joseph Collette and Sgt. 1st Class Will Lindsay were both killed in the war-torn country recently back in March. The Taliban claimed responsibility for their deaths.
More than 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan since combat operations began there in October 2001, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
There are an estimated 14,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan helping train the Afghan Armed Forces, as well as carrying out counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban, al Qaeda, Islamic State, and other terrorist groups that remain in the country.
When asked by Baier about whether 14,000 was the right number of troops to have in the country, Shanahan said, “We don’t talk troop movements, and we don’t talk troop levels.”
The U.S. government, led by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, has been negotiating in “peace talks” with Taliban representatives in Qatar for a number of months.
The so-called “Taliban Five,” the high-ranking Taliban fighters who were released by former President Barack Obama in exchange for U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, have been made a prominent part of the talks by the Taliban.
Khalilzad claims the U.S. and the Taliban have tentatively agreed on two aspects of an agreement: a timeline for U.S. withdrawal from the country and guarantees from the Taliban that foreign terrorists would not be given safe haven in the country.
Many are skeptical of the Taliban’s trustworthiness on following through on its assurances. The Afghan government has been excluded from these discussions at the request of the Taliban — to their great frustration.
“We are executing the South Asia strategy. And the South Asia strategy really speaks to reconciliation with the Taliban. And reconciliation comes about by putting pressure on them,” Shanahan said on Tuesday night. “We’re at war. And what you see are the casualties of war. In parallel, there is a peace negotiation process. And probably the best possibility for peace in 40 years is at hand.”
