| From Tacoma WA The news Tribune thenewstribune.com
04/16/07:
Afghanistan bomb blast kills soldier from Auburn
The News Tribune and The Associated Press
Published: April 16th, 2007 01:00 AM
He’d worked as a construction foreman, but the destruction created by four hijacked airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, spurred Auburn native Casey Combs to join the Army.
“He was angry that someone would try to attack his country like that, and he wanted to serve his country,” said Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Burrill. “Combs never stepped away from a challenge or shirked responsibility.”
Combs, a staff sergeant assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, N.C., died last Thursday in a roadside bombing in Miri, Afghanistan. He was 28.
Sgt. David A. Stephens, 28, of Tullahoma, Tenn., also died in the bombing, the Department of Defense announced Sunday.
Four other paratroopers from the Fort Bragg-based division died the previous Sunday in Iraq following a bombing.
Combs joined the Army and the 82nd Airborne Division in 2002.
He is survived by his wife, Amber Combs, and his daughter Hallie, 6, and son Trenton, 2, all of Fayetteville, N.C.; his father, Robert Combs, of Orting, and his mother Lillian Combs, of Auburn.
Amber Combs said her husband “was a good dad, cared a lot about his kids and liked to be home with them.”
On his MySpace profile, Casey Combs wrote that he liked to golf and that he hoped to eventually return home to Washington.
The page also lists Combs as a 1997 Sumner Senior High School graduate. |
