Marine Cpl. Jason A. Karella

Died October 9, 2008 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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20, of Anchorage, Alaska; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.; died Oct. 9 while supporting combat operations in Delaram, Afghanistan.

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Twentynine Palms Marine killed in Afghanistan

Staff report

A California-based Marine was killed Thursday in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.

Cpl. Jason A. Karella, 20, of Anchorage, Alaska, died supporting combat operations in Farah province. Karella, a tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided antitank missile gunner, was killed when his Humvee rolled over while he was in the gun turret, according to the Naval Safety Center.

“He was the vehicle commander, [and had] the best seat on the armored Humvee,” Karella’s father, Kevin Karella, told an NBC news affiliate in Alaska. “But the guy up in the turret wasn’t feeling good, and so he gave up his seat … and he climbed up in the turret.

“And had he not been in the turret, he would have not been killed.”

Karella was born in Fairbanks, where much of his family still lives, according to a report in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. He spent his senior year of high school at the Alaska Military Youth Academy, the TV station reported.

Karella was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines out of the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

The incident is under investigation, according to Marine spokesman.

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Service honors Marine killed in Afghanistan

By Chris Freiberg

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner via AP

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Saturday would have been Cpl. Jason Karella’s 21st birthday.

But instead of celebrating, the Karella family is mourning, having just laid the young Marine to rest Friday.

Karella, who had already served a tour in Afghanistan, was killed in a vehicle accident Oct. 9 in Afghanistan’s Farah province while with the California-based 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

Hundreds of friends, family and members of the armed services came to Fairhill Community Church to pay their last respects.

“My son was proud of what he stood for,” said Karella’s father, Kevin, his voice cracking with emotion. “He had a fiancee named Beth and he said to me, ‘Dad, I don’t have to worry about Beth getting blown up in a market over there because we’re keeping them busy here.”’

Karella was born in Fairbanks and split his teen years between the Interior and Anchorage. He attended Bartlett High School in Anchorage and graduated through the Alaska Military Youth Academy Challenge Program.

“I remember thinking as gentle a guy as he was, I was going to be worried about him,” his cousin Scott Stout, now serving in Afghanistan, wrote in a eulogy read by his wife, Jacqueline.

Karella grew up in a strong military family, with his father a former chief warrant officer in the Army, and his brother Josh also having served in Iraq.

Marines recognized Karella for his incredible strength, which he used to carry large amounts of ammunition with him in the battlefield. They referred to him as “the walking ammo supply point” and “the walking arsenal.” Well-respected among his peers, he was awaiting a promotion to sergeant at the time of his death.

He didn’t always seem to be destined for those titles, however, as family members remembered him Friday as rather quiet and overweight child. But that image disappeared after he graduated from boot camp in late 2005.

“You can’t imagine what a metamorphosis it was to see him like that,” his brother, Josh, said. “It was the first time he ever beat me at arm wrestling.”

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Marine Cpl. Jason A. Karella remembered

The Associated Press

At the Alaska Military Youth Academy, Jason A. Karella earned the highest leadership rank a cadet can achieve at the school. In boot camp, he became a squad leader.

“He had a way of making people follow his lead because of how he carried himself,” said his father, Kevin Karella.

Karella, 20, of Anchorage, Alaska, died Oct. 10 in a vehicle accident in Farah province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Twentynine Palms, Calif.

He enjoyed playing hockey in his youth, as well as snowboarding and riding a snow machine. An avid outdoorsman, he loved camping, hunting and fishing.

His son had already seen his share of scrapes in Afghanistan, Kevin Karella said. Two or three weeks before his death, a man shot him twice with an AK-47.

Karella planned to leave the military in a year and marry his fiancée, and the couple hoped to live in Alaska. Photos sent home from Afghanistan show a beaming Karella speaking with an Afghan child.

He also is survived by his mother, Anne-Marie Kitchens; his stepfather, Bill Anklewich, and his stepmother, Dawn-Marie Karella.

Jason once said if anything happened to him he wanted his family to toast him with glasses of Jameson Irish whiskey.