Marine from Missouri among those killed in Afghanistan

(AP) One of the 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan was a Marine who grew up in the St. Louis area.

KMOX Radio reports that 20-year-old Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz of Wentzville was among those killed Thursday.

His father, Mark Schmitz, says Marines came to his home at 2:40 a.m. Friday to confirm his son’s death.

“His life meant so much more. I’m so incredibly devastated that I won’t be able to see the man that he was very quickly growing into becoming,” Schmitz said of his son.

Schmitz says Jared had only been in Afghanistan for two weeks and was among a group of Marines sent back to Afghanistan to assist with evacuation efforts. The bombing was blamed on Afghanistan’s offshoot of the Islamic State group, a lethal enemy of both the Taliban and the West.