An Army officer died throughout a coaching occasion on the service’s Joint Readiness Coaching Heart at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, on Saturday, the service confirmed.
First Lt. Zachary Galli died in an incident associated to a fall, one supply with direct information of the scenario instructed Navy.com. He was assigned to the 749th Ordnance Firm, 242nd Explosive Ordnance Battalion, of the 71st Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group, primarily based out of Fort Carson, Colorado.
“Our ideas and prayers are with the family and friends of the Galli household, the 749th EOD Co., and the better EOD neighborhood,” Col. Brennan Fitzgerald, commander 71st EOD, stated in a press release.
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Galli, 23, was an explosive ordnance officer. A Williamsburg, Virginia, native, Galli commissioned into the Army just below two years in the past from the College of Virginia’s Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corps, or ROTC, program, the place he studied kinesiology.
His awards embrace the World Warfare on Terrorism Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon and Fundamental Explosive Ordnance Disposal Badge.
The incident continues to be below investigation.
The Joint Readiness Coaching Heart is among the Army’s premier coaching grounds. There, models usually conduct large-scale coaching occasions earlier than deploying overseas. Some 60,000 troopers from the active-duty power, the Nationwide Guard and reserve rotate via the set up’s pre-deployment coaching annually.
The dying comes after an unrelated coaching incident in late April, by which a seventh Infantry Division soldier was by accident shot at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
That soldier was shot by one other service member with an M249 Squad Computerized Weapon, or SAW, when reside ammunition was by accident blended in with blanks, in accordance with three sources with direct information of the scenario. That soldier continues to be recovering after they had been struck within the stomach.
The service has additionally seen a string of back-to-back aviation incidents, with 14 fatalities final 12 months and incidents on the rise this 12 months.
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