Sgt. James Lee

(reprinted from IndyStar.com, April 9, 2005)

Hoosier Marine among dead, family says

Mount Vernon man killed in helicopter crash in Afghanistan, his mother says.

MOUNT VERNON, Ind. -- Relatives of a Marine from southwestern Indiana say he was among 16 people killed in a military helicopter crash this week in Afghanistan.

Jimmy Shawn Lee, 26, Mount Vernon, was scheduled to come home next week from a deployment that began in September.

"He had told us to stop watching the news because we would always get so upset and scared," his mother, Rebecca Blanchard, of Crossville, Ill., told the Evansville Courier & Press. "He told us, 'Unless you see two Marines waiting for you, I am OK.' Last night (Wednesday) at my daughter's house, that's what I saw -- two Marines."

The Department of Defense did not immediately confirm Lee's death.

Thirteen U.S. service members and three civilians working for the American government were killed in Wednesday's crash, the deadliest incident for Americans since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Blanchard said Lee graduated in 1997 from Mount Vernon High School in the city about 20 miles west of Evansville.

His family said his second four-year commitment to the Marines was to expire in June and he had not decided whether to re-enlist.

They described him as a devout Christian who aspired to travel the world as a missionary.

Lee's half sister, Destiny Dowden, of New Harmony, said Lee and his ex-wife, Mi Sung Lee, had planned to remarry soon.

The couple were divorced shortly before he was deployed to Afghanistan last year, Dowden said, and he had taken her last name when they married in 1999.

"He was the most honest, loving, giving and fun-loving person I ever met," Dowden said.

Two more soldiers were missing after the crash, which officials blamed on bad weather.

The CH-47 Chinook went down in a sandstorm Wednesday near Ghazni city, 80 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, as it headed for the main U.S. base at Bagram after a mission in the insurgent-plagued south.

Officials reported no sign of enemy fire and suggested the bad weather may have caused a fatal pilot error or technical problem. A second Chinook made it safely back.

Lee's death came 11 days after four members of the Indiana National Guard were killed when a land mine exploded under their military vehicle outside Kabul.

Three others from Indiana also are among the military personnel who have died in Afghanistan or Pakistan since U.S. anti-terrorism operations began there in late 2001.