The New Yorkers who Died in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

Credit to Jarrett Murphy

Colleagues remember Cpl. Aaron M. Allen, 24, who was killed while conducting combat operations in Fallujah in 2008.

New York State has lost 295 soldiers, sailors, Air Force members or Marines in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to Department of Defense records. More of the dead may have hailed from New York but identified another place, possibly the location of the domestic military base where they lived before deployment, as their home.

Seventy of those New Yorkers died in what the Pentagon calls “non-hostile” situations. New York also has 2,309 wounded to date. The Empire State ranks fourth for total casualties in the wars, behind California, Texas and Florida.

The people from New York who have died ranged in rank from private first-class to major. The vast majority (214) were in the Army; 68 were in the Marines, 11 in the Navy and one in the Air Force. Under 20 percent were in the National Guard or Reserve; most were active-duty. The youngest two, Le Ron Adrian Wilson and David Evans, Jr., were 18. Harold Joseph Green was the oldest at 55. Only eight were women.

Benjamin Alan Johnson was the first from New York to die, on November 18, 2001 aboard the USS Peterson in the Arabian Sea. The most recent death was that of Ramon Sheldon Morris, who was lost last December 12 at Bagram, Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is where 95 New Yorkers died. One hundred seventy seven perished in Iraq, three each in Germany and Bahrain, two apiece in the Arabian Sea, Kenya and Kuwait. One died in Pakistan, one in the Gulf of Aden and one in Britain. Eight actually died on U.S. soil in operations related to the wars.