Body of 2nd Navy sailor recovered

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan

The discovery of the body of a second U.S. sailor who vanished in Afghanistan last week only deepened the mystery of the men’s disappearance nearly 60 miles from their base in a dangerous area controlled by the Taliban.

An investigation is under way, but with both sailors dead, U.S. authorities remained at a loss Thursday to explain what two junior enlisted men in noncombat jobs were doing driving alone in Logar province, where much of the countryside is not under government control.

“This is like a puzzle,” said Abdul Wali, deputy head of the governing council in Logar.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley — father of two boys age 5 and 9 — from Kingman, Ariz., and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, from the Seattle area, disappeared in the province July 23. McNeley’s body was recovered there Sunday, and Newlove’s body was pulled from a river Wednesday evening, Afghan officials said.

The U.S. Navy confirmed Newlove’s death Thursday.

At the Newlove’s house in west Seattle, where children’s chalk drawings adorned the sidewalk, a big sign on the door said: “The family has no comment. Please respect our privacy.”

Newlove’s father, Joseph Newlove, broke the silence briefly to tell a TV station that his son’s duties were limited to Kabul, and to wonder why he would have been so far off base.

“He had never been out of that town,” the elder Newlove told KOMO-TV in Seattle. “So why would he go out of that town? He wouldn’t have.”

Officials at the NATO-led coalition headquarters in Kabul have not offered an explanation as to why the two service members were driving a heavily armored vehicle so far from their base at Camp Julien.

The NATO official in Kabul shot down speculation that the two had been abducted in Kabul and driven to Logar — the same province where New York Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped in 2008 while trying to make contact with a Taliban commander. Rohde and an Afghan colleague escaped in June 2009 after seven months in captivity.

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