Command Sgt. Maj. killed in Afghanistan
Command Sgt. Maj. Wardell Turrner, assigned to a key training command in Afghanistan, was killed Monday, according to a friend and Facebook posts.
Two soldiers were killed Monday morning when a bomb hidden in the median strip of a street in eastern Kabul detonated as a convoy of coalition troops drove by, according to a New York Times report.
The bomb struck a Toyota Land Cruiser and also wounded a passerby, Afghan police told the Times.
The names and nationalities of the soldiers have not been released by the American-led International Security Assistance Force. The policy of the U.S. Department of Defense is to not release the name of casualties until 24 hours after the next of kin has been identified.
But Turner’s death was confirmed by Elmer Davis, a close friend who had known Turner since high school. Davis said a family member informed him of his friend’s death.
The other casualty has been identified by local media in Ohio as Spc. Joseph Riley. Riley had been in the Army less than three years, according to the report Tuesday by the NBC affiliate in Columbus.
Turner served as the CSM for Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan in Kabul, which is primarily responsible for training Afghan National Security Forces. Earlier this year, CSTC-A lost Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, who was killed in a deadly insider attack Aug. 5 in Kabul. Greene was CSTC-A’s deputy commander and the first American general officer to be killed by hostile fire in combat since Sept. 11, 2001.
The last time a command sergeant major was killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan was August 2012. Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin Griffin, the senior enlisted soldier for 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, died in a deadly twin suicide-bomber attack in Asadabad. Also killed were Maj. Thomas Kennedy, Air Force Maj. Walter Gray and Ragaei Abdelfattah, a civilian working for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Turner graduated from Bennett High School in 1984 and was a member of the 1983 championship football team.
He attended Towson University on a football scholarship, graduating in 1989 with a bachelors degree in management.
Turner later earned a master’s degree in criminal justice from Central Missouri State University in 2011.
Turner had served in several military police units since 1993, most recently in the 720th Military Police Battalion. He was promoted to sergeant major in July 2013.
Daniel Savoy, an administrator at James M. Bennett High School from the 1970s through the 1990s, remembers Turner as someone willing to help.
“I could ask him for help of any kind and he would be more than willing to help me or anyone else,” Savoy said. “He did not hesitate to help anyone. All you had to do was ask.”
He also said “the way he carried himself and so forth” resembled that of military personnel, adding “he walked with a purpose.”
Source: Army Times
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