NCO killed in Afghanistan, family says - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

NCO killed in Afghanistan, family says

A noncommissioned officer who once served as a presidential guard was killed Saturday in Afghanistan’s Farah province, according to reports.

Sgt. Daniel Hansen, 24, of Tracy, Calif., was killed in a roadside bomb blast, his twin brother Matthew, a fellow Marine, told their hometown newspaper, the Tracy Press. Hansen was assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 171, Marine Wing Support Group 17, Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, according to the Defense Department.

Hansen, who was engaged to be married, was tasked with defusing bombs, his brother said. Matthew Hansen, stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., also told the newspaper that his brother was posthumously promoted to E-6.

The Hansen brothers joined the Corps a week apart in 2002, after graduating from high school, the newspaper reported. Daniel Hansen was eventually chosen to serve as a guard for George W. Bush at the presidential retreat Camp David, his brother said. Later, Hansen was picked to guard Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, who took Hansen with him to Iraq.

“I had asked my brother after he told me of his upcoming deployment if he wanted to go,” Matthew Hansen wrote their father this week, the newspaper reported. “He said: ‘It doesn’t matter if I wanna go or not. If I don’t, they will send another Marine; and I would never be able to hold my head up if something happened to him in my place.’ ”

No other information was immediately available.