American Soldiers KIA in Afghanistan Last Week

(3PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Staff Sgt. Justin E. Schmalstieg

Renee Drummond-Brown, whose son, Specialist Cardell Nino Brown, was close friends with Mr. Schmalstieg, described him as “a very brilliant mind.” She said Mr. Schmalstieg spent so much time at her house as a child that she considered him a son.

Even as a child he was unusually quiet and calm, she said, traits that would have served him well as a bomb technician.

“He was the one with the peaceful spirit,” she said.

Spec. Sean R. Cutsforth

His wife said he played football as well as baseball at Brentsville, and was also on a traveling youth baseball team. She said Cutsforth received a scholarship to Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk and spent three semesters there. He studied recreation and leisure activities and coached swimming.

She said she is expecting a child. It’s a boy, she said.

“Them as a couple, they really completed each other,” said Beth Whitaker, a family friend. “They were each other’s best friends.”

Lance Cpl. Jose A. Hernandez

Mirna Collazo, Hernandez’s ex-girlfriend, thought of a promise that Hernandez made before he was deployed to Afghanistan. Collazo said that she and Hernandez dated for about four months, but separated in large part because he didn’t want her to carry the burden of his fighting in a war.

“He always said, ‘I don’t want it to be hard on you,'” Collazo said. “But little did he know, it still is. He said, ‘If you promise me that you’re going to see me when I get back, I’ll promise you that I’ll come back.’ Now I’m just left with his promise.”

Cpl. Sean M. Collins

It wasn’t long after he received an Army teddy bear for Christmas, complete with a camo outfit. Linda and Paddy Collins said he got fed up at home and decided to run away.

Linda Collins found him walking down the road with a backpack, his Army teddy bear sticking out the back.

“He was running away to the East Gate of Fort Lewis,” Paddy Collins said. “He said he was going to enlist.”

Cpl. Willie A. McLawhorn Jr

Will attended Northeast Academy in Lasker, graduating in 2005. He was selected to the All-Roanoke-Chowan Baseball Team his senior year.

From an early age, Will loved to play Army, building forts and tossing pine cones pretending they were grenades.

Spec. Patrick D. Deans

“A Veteran is someone, who at one point in their life, wrote a blank check payable to the United States of America for an amount up to, and including their life,” Deans posted on his (Facebook) wall Nov. 10.

He is survived by his wife, Melissa, and three children, Zachery, 7, Julian, 2, and Joselyn, 1.

Spec. Kenneth E. Necochea Jr

Laura Dossett of Tennessee, met him when he was stationed at Fort Campbell and they quickly became close. “He was so shy (when they first met) but once we got to know each other, he opened up,” Dossett said. “He was such a gentle, sweet soul. He was a strong Christian. He was one of the only boys who ever willingly went to church with me.”

Dossett recalled that he brought her mother flowers the first time he met her. “She wondered ‘What’s he buttering me up for,’ but she learned that was just Kenny being Kenny. My family just loved him.”

Spec. Jorge E. Villacis

Villacis’ death came just less than a month after one of his closest friends, Staff Sgt. Juan Rivadeneira, 27, was killed in in a similar incident in Kandahar.  Jessica Geribon, along with her husband Ricardo, her sister Jannina Salterini of Miramar, and Villacis’ parents Jorge and Segunda Villacis, of Hollywood, were all at the South Florida VA National Cemetery, west of Lake Worth, on Nov. 30 for Rivadeneira’s burial.

As she stood next to Rivadeneira’s flag-draped casket, Jessica Geribon said she could not help thinking, “I don’t want to be here again for my brother. I don’t want to relive this.”

Spec. Derek T. Simonetta

U.S. Army Spc. Derek Simonetta celebrated his 21st birthday with his family in Redding and San Carlos two months ago before returning to Afghanistan to fight. He confessed he had some misgivings about going back.

“We’re going over there to die,” one service member told him.