Since 2001, the conflict in Afghanistan has cost the lives of 4,410 U.S. service personnel and wounded just under 32,000 others. Hundreds of other allied personnel have also lost their lives there.
Three more Americans joined them last week.
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To start, however, we should note what they died doing. NATO’s security mission will establish Afghanistan’s capability to sustain its own security and to deny Afghan territory as a safe haven for transnational terrorist groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda. Our objectives are rightly more realistic now: focused on supporting Afghan forces in securing major settlements and highways rather than Afghanistan at large. And Afghan forces are increasingly taking the lead. Still, American losses remain a reality nearly 18 years after this conflict first began.
Here are some details on the three Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, and 4th Marine Division who were killed in action last week.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Slutman, 43, of Newark, Del., joined the Marine Corps on Nov. 1, 2005. A rifleman, he was deployed to Iraq in 2008-2009. A husband and father to three children, when he wasn’t wearing the uniform of the Marine Corps, Slutman was a firefighter in New York City. There, his brothers and sisters now proudly remember him. A senior noncommissioned officer who served at home and abroad and fought and died alongside his Marines, Slutman immortalizes all that is best about America.
Sgt. Benjamin Hines was also a Marine rifleman. A native of York, Pa., Hines joined the Marine Corps on Oct. 16, 2006. Like Slutman, he also served in Iraq during 2008 and 2009. He was 31 years old when he died. Consider those dates of enlistment and death and you realize that Hines joined the Marine Corps at age 18. When others were partying in college, he was learning to fight and, if necessary, die for his comrades and his country. Hines was a special person.
Cpl. Robert Hendriks of Locust Valley, N.Y., entered service on Oct. 10, 2012. At 25 years old, he was the youngest of the three. He was a machine gunner, responsible for providing his fellow Marines with supporting fire. This deployment to Afghanistan was his first combat mission. Hendriks’ brother, another Marine, repatriated his brother’s body. The boys’ father, Erik, explained to the New York Post, “I am the proudest dad on Earth. It is going to sound like a cliche but [Robert] was the perfect son, he never caused me one problem.” Hendriks’ mother Felicia Arucleo, echoed this sentiment. “He was kind and compassionate and was always there for everyone. That was my son, my hero.”
Thus three more names join the honor roll of Afghanistan fallen. They join others such as Arden Buenagua, Robert Kelly, and Mark Evison, who died fighting for security and a better world. They join those Marines like John Fitzpatrick, Ernest Kernen, and David Greene, who have always so nobly defended our great republic.
Let’s remember them. And let’s affirm the sacred truth Cpl. Hendriks’ mother speaks when she says, “I am and always will be proud to call my sons United States Marines.”
