Fellow soldiers remember Tom, Yanney

Two Stryker soldiers killed in Afghanistan

A roadside bomb explosion Tuesday killed two soldiers of a Fort Lewis Stryker brigade sent to southern Afghanistan to battle the Taliban, the Pentagon announced Sunday.

Pfc. Jonathan C. Yanney of Litchfield, Minn., and Spc. Troy O. Tom of Shiprock, N.M., became the first members of 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division killed since it deployed in June.

The soldiers were killed near Arghandab in Kandahar province. Tom's parents told the Associated Press last week their 21-year-old son was killed when he stepped on a roadside bomb. His unit of the brigade's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, was setting up camp after a fight with Taliban insurgents earlier that day, his parents told the news service.

The 3,900-member unit is the first Stryker brigade to deploy to Afghanistan and is a crucial part of the Pentagon's buildup of 17,000 troops to counter the simmering insurgency in the country's south. The 5th Brigade has troops serving in Kandahar and Zabul provinces.

They are the 318th and 319th service members with Washington ties – either from the state or assigned to one of its military installations – to die during American military operations since 2001.

Tom, an infantryman on his first deployment, enlisted on Feb. 11, 2006 and arrived at Fort Lewis nine months later. He received the National Defense Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Expert Infantryman Badge and the Parachutist Badge.

Yanney, a 20-year-old fire support specialist also on his first deployment, enlisted on March 25, 2008, and arrived at Fort Lewis on Sept. 6, 2008. His awards and decorations include the National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon.

Tuesday was a particularly deadly day for Washington's troops. 1st Sgt. Jose San Nicholas Crisostomo, a long-time Spanaway resident, was killed in Kabul when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. The last time three or more Washington service members were killed on the same day was Nov. 18, 2007, when three soldiers from 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division were killed on a patrol in Baqouba, Iraq.

Soldier laid to rest near grandfather’s hometown

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Minnesota soldier with Arkansas ties has been laid to rest in North Little Rock’s Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery.

A small ceremony was held Aug. 31 for Pfc. Jonathan Yanney, 20, who died Aug. 18 in Afghanistan after his team was hit with an improvised explosive device.

Yanney’s hometown is listed on military records as Litchfield, Minn., the same town where he enlisted in the Army in March 2008. He attended Norwood High School in Missouri and was buried in Arkansas at the request of his family.

His father, Russell Yanney, lives in Grapevine.

Yanney was a member of the 1st Battalion, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.

Pfc. remembered as respectful, outgoing

The Associated Press

Jonathan C. Yanney once described himself on a social networking Web site as a “pretty active” person who didn’t like “just sitting around doing nothing.”

He was a driven kid with a dry sense of humor, said Principal Marcella Swatosh of Norwood High School in Norwood, Mo., where Yanney attended for three years.

“He was always very focused on wanting to help people, and it sounds like that’s what he was doing,” she said.

Yanney, 20, of Litchfield, Minn., died Aug. 18 in Arghandab, Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive detonated near his unit. He was based in Fort Lewis, Wash.

His former baseball coach, Kevin Drake, said Yanney joined the team even though he hadn’t previously played. He said even as a slugger on the junior varsity team, Yanney had at least one trait that’s characteristic of the military.

“Very respectful, always, ‘Yes sir, Mr. Drake,’ ” Drake said.

He was also outgoing and friendly, said Samantha Lynn Fedele, who worked with Yanney at a fast food restaurant.

“His smile would be the very first thing you noticed,” she said.

Yanney is survived by his mother, Jane Kuhn Yanney; his father, Russ Yanney; and his brother, Josh.

In this May 20, 2010 photo, U.S. Arm Spc. Christopher Sheffield, of Boise, Idaho, rests his head on the butt of his rifle while riding in a Stryker on his way to a patrol with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade, in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Sheffield wears a rememberance bracelet bearing the name of his friend, Pfc. Jonathan C. Yanney, who was killed last August when he stepped on an IED while on patrol with Bravo Company in the Arghandab valley. Yanney was of the first of 22 who were killed during the Battalion's 12-month deployment which ends this summer.

In this May 23, 2010 photo, small tributes lie alongside a memorial photograph of U.S. Army Pfc. Jonathan C. Yanney, 20, of Litchfield, Minn., in a tent at Frontenac base in Afghanistan. Yanney died last year in fighting in the Arghandab River Valley near Kandahar city.Twenty-two men in the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of 800, including Yanney, died in a yearlong Afghan tour ending this summer. Most were killed last year in the Arghandab, a gateway to the southern city of Kandahar. About 70 were injured, all but two in bomb blasts.