Joshua H. Birchfield
Profile
Age: 24
From: Westville, IN
Assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Incident: Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua H. Birchfield died Feb. 19 while supporting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan.
Died: February 19, 2010
3/4 Marine’s death in Afghanistan investigated
By Dan Lamothe
Staff writer
The death of a lance corporal in Afghanistan is under investigation, and it may have been caused by a rogue Afghan security guard hired by the U.S. government to fend off the Taliban.
Lance Cpl. Joshua Birchfield, 24, was killed by small-arms fire Feb. 19 in Farah province, Marine officials said. A native of Westville, Ind., Birchfield was with 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, out of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Citing an e-mail from a service member who was at the scene of Birchfield’s death, a Chicago television station reported March 2 that Birchfield may have been killed by private guards hired by the military to protect a road paving project. The guards had been using opium, and the shooter “was found to have copious amounts of wet opium on him shortly after the shooting,” according to the e-mail cited by WLS-TV, an ABC affiliate in...