U.S. Marine dies months after being injured in Afghanistan

U.S. Marine dies months after being injured in Afghanistan

2012-04-06 06:34:30 GMT+7 (ICT)

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS (BNO NEWS) -- A U.S. Marine from New York who was critically injured in January when a suicide bomber attacked his patrol in southern Afghanistan has died at a military hospital in Texas, the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed on Thursday.

Corporal Christopher D. Bordoni, 21, of Ithaca, New York, was critically injured on January 18 when a suicide bomber attacked his patrol in Helmand province, located in southern Afghanistan. Bordoni was sent to a hospital in Germany before being transported to San Antonio Military Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where he died on Tuesday night.

Few details about the attack in January have been released by officials, but the U.S. Department of Defense earlier confirmed that 25-year-old Marine Corporal Phillip D. McGeath, of Glendale, Arizona, was killed in the same attack. They were both assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

"The community support has been heartfelt and very, very much appreciated by Chris and his family," Robin Webb, Bordoni's mother-in-law, told the Ithaca Journal on Thursday. "He is a true hero," she added. Bordoni was on his second tour in Afghanistan.

Tuesday's death raises the number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 103, most of them American and British service members, according to official figures. Three American troops were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a park in northern Afghanistan.

A total of 566 ISAF troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2011, down from 711 in 2010. A majority of the fallen troops were American and were killed in the country's south, which is plagued by IED attacks on troops and civilians.

There are currently more than 130,000 ISAF troops in Afghanistan, including some 90,000 U.S. troops and more than 9,500 British soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama previously ordered a drawdown of 23,000 U.S. troops later this year, and foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-04-06