For the second time in a week, a Stryker brigade combat engineer from Joint Base Lewis-McChord has been killed in Afghanistan.
Spc. Trevor Pinnick, 20, was killed Monday when a mine exploded, his father, Thomas Pinnick, told The Telegraph newspaper of Alton, Ill.
Pinnick was promoted earlier this month and assigned to the engineer company under the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. He joined the unit after it deployed to Afghanistan in December.
His father told the newspaper that Pinnick searched for and defused improvised explosive devices and that he had planned to make a career in the Army.
“He wanted to be Army strong,” his father told The Telegraph. “He always hit the ground running when he wanted to do something.”
Pinnick, of Lawrenceville, Ill., is the 13th soldier from Lewis-McChord killed in Afghanistan this year. About 9,300 soldiers assigned to two local Stryker brigades are deployed in Afghanistan, and a third brigade is headed there later this year. Another combat engineer, 33-year-old Sgt. 1st Class Barett McNabb, was killed Tuesday – also from the blast of a buried enemy bomb.
The News Tribune was unable to reach Pinnick’s family members for further comment. The Department of Defense had not officially announced his death by Friday evening. Pinnick lived in Lacey with wife, Martha, and their year-old daughter, Melody, according to his Facebook page.
In addition to his wife, his daughter and his father, Pinnick is survived by his mother, Nancy; an older brother, Thomas Pinnick Jr.; and twin sisters, Kayla Lynn and Bethany Rose, according to The Telegraph.
christian.hill@ thenewstribune.com 253-274-7390 @TNTchill
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