A 24-year-old Marine from Thornton was killed by a roadside bomb Thursday while on a combat foot patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, the U.S. Marines Corps announced Friday.
He was identified as Cpl. Larry D. Harris Jr., a mortar man assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
Harris joined the Marines in May 2006. Before being deployed to Afghanistan, he served in Iraq.
Among his service awards were the Purple Heart, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the National Defense Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Medal, and the sea Service Deployment Ribbon.
“The Marines and sailors of the 1st Marine Division mourn the loss of Cpl. Harris. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family,” the Marine Corps said in a statement.
As of Friday, at least 1,063 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to an Associated Press count. The AP count is six more than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday morning.
At least 841 military personnel have died in the Afghan region as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
Outside the Afghan region, the department reports at least 78 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, eight were the result of hostile action. The military lists the other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
