First local soldier dies in Afghanistan
From Herald reporter Zoe Fraley:
A Ferndale High School graduate was killed in Afghanistan Thursday, Nov. 5, after he drove his Stryker vehicle over a buried explosive, according to his family.
Spc. Aaron Aamot, 22, was in the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment and was part of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based in Fort Lewis. He had been serving in Afghanistan since mid-July when he and another soldier were killed by an improvised explosive device that was buried in the road just northwest of Kandahar, said Aamot’s brother, Matt Aamot.
Read the full story, over here.


November 7th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
We can put a man on the moon but we can’t figure out a way to protect our soldiers from IEDs.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
What a tragic loss. We shouldn’t be there. This has nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The Taliban hates Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is in Pakistan. We are in the middle of a 4 decade old civil war and just backing the present horse running against the Taliban. Also, If we just purchased all the Heroin, rather than having our troops in the middle of this drug fueled dispute, we could save money and wouldn’t need to put our troops in harms way. We could also destroy all the heroin coming out of Afghanistan and that would be a good thing too.
November 8th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
It is the nightmare of every parent.
I am truly sorry for the loss of this young man, and for the many thousands of our troops who have died before him.
For what noble purpose does it serve, and does it merit the sacrifice?
November 8th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Ralph Peters is a former military man whose insights into war, the cost of war, and what is really needed to defeat our enemies crosses political lines, here is a very interesting recent opinion piece of his that makes more sense than anything we are today hearing in DC from either party:
“Blood for nothing
AFGHANISTAN isn’t completely hopeless, just use less. It’s a strategic joke with a bloody punch line.
Even if everything went perfectly in Afghanistan — which it won’t — the results would be virtually meaningless: Our mortal enemies (above all, al Qaeda) have dug in elsewhere, from Pakistan to Somalia…..
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/blood_for_nothing_jHmHEXtE3bMu6q0jTeBIkK
AFY!!thesheepdog!!!
November 8th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
The sacrifice has been made, we don’t get this fine young man back. We can stop the next one from being one of the last to die for a mistake…Obama needs to quit listening to the likes of McChrystal, grow a pair and tell the generals to piss off..
November 11th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Thanks for the link, AFY.
It’s a good one.