Spec. Pedro A. Maldonado was killed by “insurgents” near the village of Kandalay in the Korengal Valley, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan on October 29, 2010, and I did a sort of double-take about this story when I finally saw it yesterday, because…
After years of sustained fighting and casualties with little evident progress, the US military closed Korangal Outpost on April 14, 2010. Forty-two American service men died fighting in the Korangal and hundreds were wounded, primarily between the years of 2006 and 2009. Many Afghan soldiers died there as well, in part because they had poorer equipment. The valley has been dubbed “The Valley of Death” by American forces.