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The Defense Department announced Thursday evening the names of both soldiers killed in the attack. Spc. Christopher Michael Harris, 25, of Jackson Springs, North Carolina, also died of injuries from the IED blast near their convoy, DoD said in a release. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both soldiers were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, DoD officials said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. military in Afghanistan said Thursday that four other American troops were wounded in the bombing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jonathon Hunter, who grew up about 40 miles south of Indianapolis in the central Indiana community of Columbus, left July 1 on his first deployment and was providing security for the convoy that was attacked, his father said. He joined the Army in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mark Hunter said his son was excited about his first deployment, but that he, as an Army veteran, was apprehensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe had been there 32 days. I\u2019m former military, me and his uncle both, so we know the dangers,\u201d Hunter told The Associated Press by phone from his home in Columbus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said his son, who got married last October and has an older brother and two stepsisters, was cheerful, loving and religious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you were down, he would cheer you up and he was God-loving. He was raised in the church,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family later issued a statement saying in part, \u201cJonathon loved his unit and serving his country and was excited about the opportunity to go to Afghanistan to do his part in fighting injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hunter said he will travel Friday to Dover Air Force Base to retrieve his son\u2019s remains and that funeral plans were being determined by him, Jonathon\u2019s mother and Jonathon\u2019s wife, Whitney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After graduating from Columbus East High School in 2011, he said his son spent a short time in Nashville, Tennessee, pursuing his dream of becoming a music producer before he enrolled Indiana State University in Terre Haute, where he studied criminology and business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Hunter said his son eventually left ISU and joined the Army in April 2014 because of he didn\u2019t want to burden him with paying for his college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAfter he got into school \u2014 and of course we were struggling with bills, to pay for it \u2014 he decided to join. He said, \u2018Dad, I know that going into the military I can get a free education,\u2019\u201d Mark Hunter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said his family has a history of military service that dates back to the Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m just proud of him. He was a great soldier. He made (sergeant) in a little over three years, which is pretty rare, they tell me,\u201d Hunter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Jonathon Hunter\u2019s death, 207 Indiana service members had died since 2002 in the war in Afghanistan or Iraq, or supporting those operations, said Tim Dyke, director of training and services Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs. He said that\u2019s based on a tally produced by the agency\u2019s former director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Indiana soldier who was just 32 days into his first deployment was one of two American service members killed in a suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan, his father said Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":45606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"coauthors":[518],"class_list":["post-48389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"K6MZCWO7MJA4BGJHLT7QYLOSME","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2017\/08\/03\/father-indiana-soldier-among-2-killed-in-afghanistan-attack\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n