NC-based airman from Indiana killed in Afghanistan

[IndianaGreen]

NC-based airman from Indiana killed in Afghanistan

Updated: May 27, 2009 04:51 PM EDT

Kris Kirschner/Eyewitness News


Ashton Goodman (photos courtesy MySpace)

Pope Air Force Base, NC -The military says a North Carolina-based airman has been killed in Afghanistan.

Ashton Goodman, a 21-year-old Indianapolis native, died from injuries she sustained by an improvised explosive device near Bagram Air Field on Tuesday, according to the Department of Defense.

At the age of 21, Goodman had already served three and a half years in the Air force. Stationed at Pope Air Force base in North Carolina, part of the 43rd Logistics Readiness Squad, she was deployed to Afghanistan.

Before she joined the Air Force in November, 2005, Goodman attended Warren Central High School for three years.

On her Myspace page, where she last logged in less than a week before she died, Goodman shared photos of her life in service of the country, and her pride as the third generation of Air Force women in her family. In a post dated earlier this year, she lamented how she missed the United States and hoped to hear from her friends at home.

Her friends, hearing of her death, share that sentiment. A message dated the morning after Goodman was killed said simply, "You are missed greatly. You will always be in my heart."

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=10431624



RIP Ashton. Condolences to your family, loved ones, and friends.

:cry:

[IndianaGreen]

1. UPDATE: Fallen hero liked a challenge

Her funeral lasted about a half-hour, and at its conclusions the funeral director released a couple dozen butterflies. They flitted about and disappeared.

Fallen hero liked a challenge

Servicewoman killed in Afghanistan left 'remarkable legacy'

By Will Higgins
Posted: June 3, 2009

The first thing Lt. Col. Scott Vaughan noticed about Ashton Goodman was that she was pleasant and quick to smile.

But as he watched her in action, he soon realized her competence, her ambition: She'd been in the U.S. Air Force fewer than three years and already had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, each time voluntarily.

She was promoted three times, to senior airman, and was soon to be made a noncommissioned officer. She recently broadened her skills by learning to write news stories for the Air Force's Web site.

"A remarkable legacy," said Vaughan, who was Goodman's squadron commander in Afghanistan and her eulogist in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

Goodman, 21, a 2006 Warren Central High School graduate, was killed last week in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb detonated under the Humvee she was driving. Her passenger, Lt. Col. Mark E. Stratton II, a member of the Pentagon Joint Staff, also was killed.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090603/LOCAL1803/906030334/Fallen+hero+killed+in+Afghanistan+left++remarkable+legacy+

:cry: