The Pentagon has identified the American special forces soldier killed in action in eastern Afghanistan Monday as Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy W. Griffin, 40, from Greenbrier, Tennessee.
Griffin, who joined the Army in 2004 and was on his fourth deployment, was killed in combat by small arms fire in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, according to a Pentagon statement.
An Army Green Beret and communications sergeant, Griffin was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. A former member of the 82nd Airborne Division, he qualified for the Army Special Forces in 2014. He was born in Cristobal, Panama, Dec. 7, 1978, the 37th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was qualified as a Korean linguist and a free-fall parachutist.
“The loss of Sgt. 1st Class Griffin is felt across the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) Family and the entire Special Forces community,” said Col. Owen G. Ray, commander, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne). “He was a warrior — an accomplished, respected and loved Special Forces Soldier that will never be forgotten. We ask that you keep his family and teammates in your thoughts and prayers.”
Griffin deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division to Iraq in 2006 and Afghanistan in 2009. He returned to Afghanistan in 2016 with the 1st Special Forces Group and was stationed in Korea in 2018.
This year, 19 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan, 17 in combat and two in noncombat incidents. Griffin’s death is the second this month and comes after the Taliban has continued to mount deadly attacks against civilians as Afghans prepare to vote in Sept. 28 presidential elections opposed by the Taliban.
In the latest attack Tuesday, a Taliban bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up at a campaign rally attended by President Ashraf Ghani in northern Afghanistan. The Associated Press reports at least 24 people were killed and 31 wounded but that Ghani was unharmed.
President Trump cited the death of Sgt. First Class Elis Barreto Ortiz and 11 others in a suicide attack in Kabul this month as his reason for rescinding an invitation for Taliban representatives to meet him at Camp David. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the repatriation ceremony for Barreto in Dover, Delaware.
