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Pentagon IDs missing, killed sailors

The Pentagon on Tuesday released the identities of the sailors captured and killed by the Taliban on Friday in Logar province, Afghanistan, after they left the capital, Kabul, for reasons that have not been publicly clear.

Missing is Culinary Specialist 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, of Renton, Wash., a reservist, who is believed to have been abducted by Taliban fighters. Officially he has been listed as “Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown.”

Killed was Hull Maintenance Technician 2nd Class Justin McNeley, 30, of Wheatridge, Colo., from the San Diego-based Assault Craft Unit 1. He died in what is believed to have been an attack on his and Newlove’s armored sport utility vehicle. NATO troops found McNeley’s body on Sunday after a massive search, which included reward posters featuring photographs of both men.

The commanding officer of ACU 1, Cmdr. Andrew Amidon, said in a Navy announcement that McNeley was “a hardworking, dedicated sailor who always sought out tough assignments. He will be missed by all who knew him.”

Newlove and McNeley were stationed in Afghanistan as individual augmentees — pulled from their regular commands to take on supplemental missions with NATO Training Mission Afghanistan in Kabul, said Navy spokesman Lt. Justin Cole. Cole did not have more information about their exact jobs, but sailors on IA duty generally take administrative, training or support jobs that regular ground forces choose not to staff with their own troops.

Navy records were not clear about exactly how long the sailors had been in Afghanistan, but it initially appeared Newlove had been in country since December and McNeley since some earlier point last year.

Pentagon spokesmen would not give details on why Newlove and McNeley might have been driving by themselves outside the wire. Cole said the International Security Assistance Force is still conducting an investigation into what happened.

McNealy’s family told Navy Times in a statement it mourned the loss and were thankful for the military’s support.

“We remember Justin as a loving father, son, brother and friend,” the statement said. “He is our hero.”

Only one other American serviceman is known to be a captive of the Taliban: Army Spc. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who went missing last June in Paktika province, in the southeast of Afghanistan.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead released a statement late Tuesday saying “the deepest sympathy of the entire Navy is with the family and friends” of McNeley, and that “We appreciate all the coalition forces have done to bring our shipmate home, and we know they continue to do everything they can in the search for … Newlove. I remain extremely proud of the thousands of U.S. Navy sailors serving on the ground in Afghanistan today, and the tens of thousands who have deployed to Afghanistan during the past nine years.”

According to the latest statistics, released Tuesday, the Navy has 6,500 sailors on the ground in Afghanistan and 2,800 in Iraq.