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At least 7 deaths in one week for battalion

A sergeant was killed in Afghanistan on Friday, bringing the number of confirmed casualties in 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, to at least seven in less than one week.

Sgt. Matthew E. Mendoza, 24, of San Antonio, was killed while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Defense Department officials said.

His death comes on the heels of two other Marines with 2/7 dying while conducting combat operations in Farah province on Thursday and four 2/7 Marines dying when their convoy was hit June 14 by a roadside bomb in western Farah province.

The battalion was sent to Afghanistan earlier in the spring as part of a temporary troop surge to train Afghanistan police and buttress forces in anticipation of an expected spring increase in violence by the Taliban.

Navy Hospitalman Dustin Kelby Burnett, 19, of Fort Mohave, Ariz., also was killed in combat operations on Friday in Farah province, Defense Department officials said. It could not immediately be confirmed that he was assigned to 2/7, but officials said in a statement that he was assigned to 1st Marine Division in Twentynine Palms, Calif., where 2/7 is based.

The two Marines killed on Thursday were Capt. Eric Daniel Terhune, 34, of Lexington, Ky., and Lance Cpl. Andrew Francis Whiteacre, 21, of Bryant, Ind. Details about their deaths were not immediately available.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit is also operating in Afghanistan as a part of the surge and has been trading gunfire and artillery shells with Taliban militants in Helmand, the world’s largest poppy-growing region.

The MEU moved into the town of Garmser in Helmand late April. They originally planned to be in the town for only a couple of days, to open a road that leads to southern Helmand, near the border with Pakistan. But the 24th MEU decided to extend its stay to root out the fighters.

After weeks of skirmishes with insurgents — who fired rockets and mortars at U.S. positions several times daily — NATO officials say the militants fled the region late last month. A shura — a council of village elders — was held in Garmser for the first time in years.