Kenneth E. Necochea Jr., Army, Corporal -- Rest In Peace

Kenneth E. Necochea Jr., 21

Army, Corporal

Based: Ft. Campbell, Ky.

2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment,

2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Supporting: Operation Enduring Freedom

Died: December 12, 2010

Kandahar province, Afghanistan

Single

Gender: Male

Hometown: San Diego

High School: Poway High (Poway)

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

Poway High Grad, Kenneth Necochea Jr., dies in Afghanistan
By Blanca Gonzalez

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 6:10 p.m.

Specialist Kenneth Necochea Jr.

As a student at Poway High School, Kenny Necochea was a gentle, quiet kid who developed a passion for history.

As a young man in the Army, he started making plans for the future and considered a career as a fireman or police officer.

He had been in Afghanistan, part of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, since early June and was looking forward to a leave in mid-January.

Specialist Kenneth Necochea Jr. was killed Dec. 12 in a suicide attack in Afghanistan. He was 21.

Five other American soldiers were also killed when a vehicle packed with explosives blew up at the entrance of a joint NATO-Afghan base in Kandahar province. Spc. Necochea and his fellow soldiers were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

Friends said Spc. Necochea was a personable, polite young man with a strong faith, great smile and good sense of humor.

Laura Dossett of Tennessee, met him when he was stationed at Fort Campbell and they quickly became close. “He was so shy (when they first met) but once we got to know each other, he opened up,” Dossett said. “He was such a gentle, sweet soul. He was a strong Christian. He was one of the only boys who ever willingly went to church with me.”

Dossett recalled that he brought her mother flowers the first time he met her. “She wondered ‘What’s he buttering me up for,’ but she learned that was just Kenny being Kenny. My family just loved him.”

David LeMaster, assistant principal at Poway High, remembered Spc. Necochea as a low-key student in his history class. “He was a nice, sweet kid. His classmates liked him and he worked well in groups,” LeMaster said. Although he didn’t participate much in class discussions, “he was great one-on-one,” LeMaster said. “Like many kids, he wasn’t too thrilled about (history) at first but he left the class excited about the subject.”

According to the Department of the Defense, Spc. Necochea was an Infantryman who joined the Army in February 2009 and arrived in Fort Campbell in June of 2009. His awards and decorations include the National Defense Service Medal, and Army Service Medal.

In a June 2010 blog posting, his mother, Donna Wright of San Diego, encouraged friends to send care packages and letters to him. His requests included beef jerky, chocolate chip cookies and hard candy, she wrote. In an Aug. 29 posting she wrote that her son had received a medal. “This medal means ‘He’s been in battle,’ been shot at and has shot at others. I can’t tell you how terrifying it was to hear this news,” she wrote.

Laurie Davidson of Selah, Wash., has known Spc. Necochea since he befriended her son, Spc. Markus Jensen at Fort Campbell. The two formed a special bond and planned on becoming police officers or opening a business together after they got out of the Army, she said.

Everybody who met Spc. Necochea loved him, Davidson said. “He was so easy to talk to … He was the type of person you wanted to spend time with, he always had something good to say.”


A California native, Kenneth E. Necochea Jr. was born March 1, 1989. He graduated from Poway High in 2007.


Survivors include his father, Kenneth E. Necochea of Poway; his mother and stepfather, Donna and Neal Wright of San Diego; and several siblings.

See the comments about Army Corporal Kenneth E. Necochea Jr. at the LA Times, visit a FaceBook page and read more about Corporal  Necochea here.

Dignified Transfer at Dover AFB
A U.S. Army carry team transfers the remains of Army Spc. Kenneth E. Necochea Jr., of San Diego, Calif., at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Dec. 13, 2010. Necochea was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky. (U.S. Air Force photo/Roland Balik)