LAWRENCE (Massachusetts, US), Sept 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US Marine Sergeant Johanny Rosario returned to her hometown in Massachusetts in a casket on Saturday, one of the last American service members killed in Afghanistan during a war set in motion exactly two decades ago by the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
Several hundred people gathered near the Farrah Funeral Home in Lawrence where Rosario’s remains arrived in a black hearse with a police motorcycle escort.
Marines in dress uniform carried the casket into the funeral home, as veterans in the crowd, some of whom had not worn a uniform in years, snapped to attention.
“We came out because she is a hero to us,” said Mary Beth Chosse, who waited for several hours with her 12-year-old son, Gavin. Chosse’s older son is a Marine on active duty.
“Sergeant Rosario’s sacrifice and bravery should always be remembered.”
Rosario, 25, was among 13 US service members killed in an Aug 26 suicide bombing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul. She was helping to screen evacuees at a checkpoint at the airport’s Abbey Gate when the bomb ripped through a crowd. Scores of Afghans also were killed in the attack.
The last US troops left Afghanistan four days later.
About 7,100 US military personnel have been killed in conflicts tied to the Sept 11 attacks, with about 2,500 of those deaths happening in Afghanistan, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute. The financial cost of those conflicts runs to nearly US$6 trillion, according to the project.
Rosario, who was 5-years-old when the attacks occurred, would begin her service years later, when the United States was already deeply involved in Afghanistan.
Shortly after graduating from high school in 2014, she enlisted and landed with the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
Eventually she would become a supply chief, a role usually held by a more senior noncommissioned officer, according to the Marines, and volunteered to be a member of the female engagement team to interact with Afghan women, barred by local custom from talking to male strangers.
Just three months before her death, she was recognized with an award for her attention to detail and expertise in tracking and reconciling some US$400,000 worth of open supply requisitions.
Like many residents in Lawrence, a working-class city about 48 km north of Boston with a strong Hispanic community, Rosario’s roots extend to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, said William Lantigua, a former mayor of the city who knows her family.
Rosario is survived by her mother and a younger sister. — NNN-AGENCIES
