Father of soldier killed in Niger says offifficers not at fault
The father of a U.S. soldier killed in a devastating ambush in Niger last year said his family does not blame two Army captains that the U.S. military cited for lapses in planning in an investigation summary released Thursday, saying any mistakes did not contribute directly to the death of their loved one.
Army Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, 35, was killed Oct. 4 while maneuvering alongside a vehicle as he and his fellow soldiers faced a hail of enemy fire outside the village of Tongo Tongo in an attack that eventually sparked a political firestorm in Washington and a months-long military investigation. Black’s father, Henry, said investigators told him his son repeatedly fifired on the enemy with both his service riflfle and a grenade launcher before he eventually fell, mortally wounded.
Moments later, two fellow soldiers who had been fighting alongside him, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, and Staffff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, also were killed, the Pentagon said in the eight-page summary released Thursday. A fourth U.S. soldier, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, 25, was killed less than 30 minutes later and not found for another two days. All four soldiers were stripped of their equipment.
“At some point as they were moving and the vehicle was moving, Bryan was apparently ahead of the vehicle, and he was killed,” Black’s father said. “Dustin and Jeremiah pulled his body behind the vehicle, and they continued to engage the enemy until they were apparently [ nearly] overrun. And then ... Jeremiah was hit. Dustin returned to stay with him and fifight with him, and they fought together until they died from the wounds they had.”
Senior U.S. military officials said Thursday that all of the U.S. soldiers in the battle fought courageously, and several could receive awards for valor. The Pentagon’s findings found multiple individual and institutional failures created the circumstances in which an American unit could be overrun, but the only individuals specififically cited were the team leader, Capt. Michael Perozeni, and a second Army captain who served as the acting commander of a base nearby.
Perozeni was shot in the battle and tossed from a vehicle, and later identifified in congressional testimony by a senior defense offifficial in December. He and the other captain were cited in the investigation for filing an initial concept of operation that said the unit, part of 3rd Special Forces Group, was to undertake a routine reconnaissance patrol.
In reality, the soldiers went on a counterterrorism mission to Tiloa, Niger, near the Mali border, to search for an Islamic State leader, Doundoun Cheffou.