The suicide bombing also left 18 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans wounded.
The Defense Department has identified the 13 U.S. service members outside of the Kabul airport on Thursday. The suicide bombing also killed scores of Afghans, and left 18 U.S. service members wounded. Here’s what we know about those who died. Corpsman Maxton «Max» W. Soviak played football at Edison High School before graduating in 2017. «As a football player he was full tilt 100 miles an hour, fearless which leads you to understand you know where he was and what maybe happened,» Jim Hall, head football coach at Edison, told CBS Cleveland, Ohio, affiliate WOIO-TV. «It didn’t seem real,» Hall said. «It still really doesn’t you know great kid, loved life. He was bright, bright kid, and it doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t seem fair you know I just hope the best for his family.» Soviak joined the Navy after high school graduation. «He just loved life,» Edison High School superintendent Thomas Roth told WOIO-TV. «He was out there and enjoyed things and he was helpful for others as I think we all can see from what happened yesterday you know he was always there to help other people. He wanted to be of service and that’s what he did.» Sergeant Ryan C. Knauss went to Gibbs High School before he enrolled in the Army, his family told CBS Knoxville, Tennessee, affiliate WVLT-TV. Knauss was a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne division and a staff sergeant. Knauss had only been in for a week before his death but had previously spent nine months in the country, his grandmother told WVLT. No local funeral arrangements have been made at this time, family members said. Knauss will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Sergeant Darin Hoover Jr. was on his third tour of duty, his father Darin Hoover Sr. told Salt Lake City CBS affiliate KUTV. «He led his men, and they followed him, but I know in my heart of hearts he was out front,» Hoover Sr. said. «They [his fellow Marines] would follow him through the gates of hell if that’s what it took.» He said the 9/11 terrorist attacks moved his son, who was a child at the time, to vow he’d serve in the military. «He decided, ‘That’s what I want to do,'» Hoover Sr. told KUTV. Hoover Jr.,31, was based at Camp Pendleton in California. «(He was the) best kid in the world,» his father said. «Couldn’t ask for any better.» Sergeant Johanny Rosario Pichardo was screening women and children at the Abbey gate when the attack took place, according to Marine First Lieutenant John «Jack» Coppola. He told CBS News in an email that Pichardo, a supply chief from the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, was a member of the brigade’s Female Engagement Team (FET). FETs, he said, are «volunteer teams of female Marines with the experience and maturity necessary to enable continuity of operations while respecting cultural norms.» Coppola said Pichardo’s service «was not only crucial to evacuating thousands of women and children, but epitomizes what it means to be a Marine: putting herself in danger for the protection of American values so that others might enjoy them.» Pichardo is a Lawrence High School graduate and former Bridgewater State University student. She is survived by her mother and sister, CBS Boston reports, and will be laid to rest in Lawrence, where her family lives. «It was her family’s wish that Rosario is remembered and honored as a hero,» Lawrence Mayor Kendrys Vasquez said Saturday. Bridgewater State University also released a statement saying the «community is struck with profound grief upon learning of the death of one of our own» even though Rosario only attended for a semester before committing herself to the Marines.
