Injured U.S. soldier dies days after shooting in Afghanistan

USPA News - A U.S. Special Forces soldier, who was critically injured earlier this month in a shooting attack in eastern Afghanistan, has died of his injuries while undergoing treatment in Germany, the U.S. military said Sunday. It raises the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 23. Sgt.

1st Class James F. Grissom, 31, of Hayward, California, was injured on March 18 when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire in Afghanistan`s eastern Paktika province. He was flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southwestern Germany where he died of his injuries on Thursday. It is believed there were no other fatalities in the March 18 attack, but because neither the U.S. military nor the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) release details about injuries, it is not known if anyone else was injured. Grissom was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. Also on Sunday, the U.S. Defense Department released the identity of a U.S. soldier who died on Friday when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device (IED) in eastern Afghanistan`s Ghazni province. The casualty was identified as Sgt. Tristan M. Wade, 23, of Indianapolis, Indiana. He was assigned to the 573rd Clearance Company, 2nd Engineer Battalion at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The latest deaths raise the number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 23, according to official figures. A total of 402 ISAF troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2012, down from 566 fatalities in 2011 and 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 102,000 ISAF troops in Afghanistan, including some 68,000 U.S. troops and 9,500 British soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama previously ordered a drawdown of 23,000 U.S. troops by the end of this year, and 22,000 of them have already left in recent months. Foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.