Army Pfc. Christian M. Warriner

Died November 14, 2010 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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19, of Mills River, N.C.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.; died Nov. 14 in Watahpur district, Kunar province, Afghanistan, when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire.

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‘He hadn’t even lived his life yet’

By Nanci Bompey

Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times

MILLS RIVER, N.C. — When Joyce Warriner awoke suddenly in the middle of the night last week, she prayed to God to protect her great-grandson.

Army Pfc. Christian “Kade” Michael Warriner was serving his country in Afghanistan.

“I prayed that the Lord would protect him and have him ready to meet him,” Joyce Warriner said from her home in Pineola in Avery County. “Then he died on Sunday. That gave me comfort. He was ready to be in the afterlife.”

Warriner, 19, of Mills River died Nov. 14 in Kunar province in Afghanistan. He was one of five soldiers killed when insurgents attacked their unit with small-arms fire.

Warriner was assigned to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), out of Fort Campbell, Ky.

He is the 15th person from western North Carolina to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Warriner was a 2009 graduate of West Henderson High School. He married his high school sweetheart, Shelby Warriner, in March, according to his Facebook profile. He joined the Army in July 2009 and arrived at Fort Campbell in November 2009.

Joyce Warriner said her great-grandson always wanted to serve his country and planned to become a forest ranger when he got out of the Army. She said he was a very loving young man and was a typical teenager who liked to go to parties and had lots of friends.

“He was so young,” Joyce Warriner said. “He hadn’t even lived his life yet.”

Dean Jones, the principal at West Henderson High School, described Warriner as a “young man who knew what he wanted to do,” which included joining the Army when he graduated. Warriner was a member of the JROTC, the Future Farmers of America and the football team. The school will likely create a memorial for Warriner, Jones said.

“One person described him as his own person. He made his own decisions,” Jones said. “Most all my conversations with him the last part of his senior year were about how excited he was about joining the Army.”

Joyce Warriner last saw Kade Warriner when he was home on leave in September. She said he told her he was fighting near the Pakistan border, one of the most dangerous areas in Afghanistan.

“He tried to cover it, but you could tell he was scared,” she said. “Every moment he was in danger.

“I am sorry he had to give his life for his country, but he was willing,” Joyce Warriner said.

“I do believe that God will bring good out of it, that there will be some good to come out of it, rather than just losing his life in vain.”

In addition to his wife, Warriner is survived by his father, Norman Warriner of Arden, and his mother, Brandy Jurczyga of Burnsville.

His awards and decorations include the Army Achievement Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, and the NATO Medal and Parachutist Badge.

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Details given on deadly attack in Kunar province

By Heidi Vogt

The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO on Nov. 18 released the first details on an insurgent attack that killed five U.S. soldiers, saying the Americans were trying to rout militants from a volatile valley in eastern Kunar province when they came under fire.

The area along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan has continued to see heavy fighting as NATO focuses most of its efforts on a troop surge in the south aimed at breaking Taliban strongholds there.

The five American soldiers who died Nov. 14 were “conducting clearing operations” when they came under fire in Watahpur valley, said Master Sgt. Brian Sipp, a spokesman for the international military alliance.

The soldiers are 27-year-old Spc. Scott Thomas Nagorski of Greenfield, Wis.; 25-year-old Spc. Jesse Adam Snow of Fairborn, Ohio; 26-year-old Spc. Nathan Edward Lillard of Knoxville, Tenn.; 31-year-old Spc. Shane Hasan Ahmed of Chesterfield, Mich.; and 19-year-old Pfc. Christian Michael Warriner of Mills River, N.C.

Sipp did not say how many troops were involved in the fight, nor provide an estimate of the number of attackers. The fighting started about 2 p.m. and lasted at least six hours, he said, with the wounded and the killed not being evacuated until late that evening.

All six deaths occurred during a four-day push called Operation Bulldog Bite to search out militants and weapons caches near the Pech river.

The area has long been a transit route for insurgents coming over from the Pakistan border and has proved a tricky area for U.S. forces trying to secure the mountainous terrain and coax villagers away from supporting the insurgents and criminals who control much of the area.

Watahpur is just 5 miles from the Korengal valley, where U.S. troops ceased operations seven months ago, saying that it was not strategically important. Forty-two Americans died in Korengal before the troops pulled out.

Operation Bulldog Bite has killed at least five insurgents, though there have been unconfirmed reports of as many as 49 insurgents killed, said Maj. Mary Constantino, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces in the area.

In addition, the forces found weapons caches containing mortar systems with rounds, more than a dozen rocket-propelled grenades, 20 anti-aircraft rounds

“Operation Bulldog Bite has degraded the insurgents’ ability to terrorize the people of the Pech valley,” Constantino said.

Three Afghan soldiers were also killed in the operation, said Gen. Khalilullah Zaiyi, the Kunar province police chief. He said about 30 insurgents were killed.

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‘He gave it 110 percent’

The Associated Press

Christian Warriner — known by his middle name, “Kade” — wasn’t a starter on his high school football team. But he was an important part of the team, unafraid to push his teammates during practice.

He was a “hard-working kid. Whatever you asked him to do, he would do it,” Paul Whitaker, the head football coach at West Henderson (N.C.) High School, told The Times-News of Hendersonville, N.C.

Warriner’s father, Frank Warriner, said that’s how he approached being a soldier.

“Just like everything else in his life, he gave it 110 percent,” Frank Warriner told WLOS-TV.

Kade Warriner wrote on his MySpace page that he had so many interests he couldn’t list them all: Hunting, fishing, whitewater rafting, tubing, kayaking. “I love everything and love every second of it!” he wrote.

Warriner, 19, was one of five soldiers killed in an attack Nov. 14 in Kunar province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Fort Campbell, Ky. He graduated from West Henderson in 2009 and married his high school sweetheart, Shelby, in March 2010.

“You could tell he loved his wife very much,” his platoon leader, Sgt. 1st Class Robert S. Pigott, told The Times-News. “He talked about her all the time and how much he missed her.”

He also kept photos of his family nearby constantly, Pigott said.