Maine native among killed soldiers returned to U.S.

Condolances to the Kirk family.

Thoughts and prayers to Joshua's family and friends

My sincere condolences to this Soldier's family and friends at this most difficult time....May God's presence be with you all...:(

I think I knew a Josh Kirk. Does anyone know whether this soldier lived in the Camden area a few years back. If this is the young man I knew then I am truly saddened.

My sincere condolences to this Soldier's family and friends at this most difficult time, God bless you.

I pray that this mans family and loved ones will be comforted during this hard and sad time. My heart breaks for the families of all our lost soldiers, my son is also Air Force and i am eternally grateful to all of these young men and women for the ultimate sacrifice they have made. They are so brave, so unselfish! Their families should be so proud of how they chose to live and the cause they chose to die for!

God bless this brave serviceman and be with his grieving family.

Very sad to see such young people losing their lives - my thoughts are with their families. Hopefully this dreadful war will ended soon.

your young man is a hero, thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. godbless!!!

My heartfelt prayers to the family of this fallen hero. His life was wasted because of our inept commander in chief. As a vet, it pains my heart to see this war drag on and killing our young men and women. Knowing we have the means to end this war in a very victorious manner. It would require a president with an ounce of courage. LAY WASTE TO THE WHOLE AREA

RussHermon:

Roger That, Brother!

Another Vietnam. You move in, they move out. You move out they move in. For our leaders to actually think they can win over the hearts and minds of the people in Afghanistan is like Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld thinking the Iraqis would throw flowers at the feet of our soldiers as liberators, total nonsense. No matter how you dress it up the result will be the same everytime we fight somebody elses wars. They wanna be free, help provide the means to do it, but with their own soldiers, not ours. If we are after Bin Laden, go covert and pay millions if need be to assasinate him. The path to his demise should not be over the bodies our soldiers. He is not worthy.

Can we just offer our condolences to the familly and leave the politics out of this. How inconsiderate of

you. The family is going through enough they don't have to read about the politics.

gunner, i hope you're referring to RussHermon. It's not our job to poilce the world.

Joyful, I am with you and set my prayers in agreement with yours. So many people are outraged when another soldier dies in combat, but we need to remember that Jesus said, "no greater gift can one give but to lay down his life for another." These soldiers are making the ultimate sacrifice for all of us in this country and we should be honoring them and their families for what they have done. God bless you all and may His peace be upon you during this very sad time in your lives. We love our soldiers and pray for our soldiers.

RussHermon, I agree with you also. That is the way the Lord fought all the battles of the Old Testament, and I believe that is how He expects us to fight these wars today. Too bad our country has become so far from what our Christian foundation is all about.

"That is the way the Lord fought all the battles of the Old Testament, and I believe that is how He expects us to fight these wars today." Are you suggesting chemical attack on all (men women and children) that don't have lambs blood on their doorframes? Come on.

RIP Soliders.

Shame on us for letting these scoundrels in Washington squander the lives of our soldiers to protect the Afghan interests of the narco criminals.

I send my most heartfelt wishes to the entire family. Sgt. Joshua J. Kirk is a hero and I thank you for the sacrifice that he gave and that you continue to give. My spouse is serving a second tour and he is proud of the work they are doing there. It is costly in every term. Someday the world will look back on the sacrifices your son, husband, and father, gave and it will be revered just as we have revered those who sacrificed for freedom in WWII.

May God bless you and may He bless the United States of America.

My heart goes out to you and your family.

Those brave enough to serve and sacrifice deserve our eternal gratitude.

Their families are to be respected for their sacrifice also.

May the peace of The Lord be yours.

I met Sgt Kirk last year when he was part of 173rd Airborne's team tasked with showing us, 1st Infantry, around the combat area just before he went home. It was my first deployment and I was nervous, but he was confident and solid and said, "look just do this, this, and this, and you'll be ok." Of all of the 173rd guys I met he stood out as one of the few that I felt was truly interested in making sure we were ok before he left, despite the fact that his own deployment had been extended an extra 3 months. So, I was surprised and sorta happy (sorta because nobody wants a friend to be in a place like Keating) a year later to see him getting off the helicopter at Keating with his distinctive body armor. It's unusual to serve back to back tours in the Army's most dangerous fight, so I asked him if he was lucky or crazy and his response was something-like "if this is where the fighting is, then I'm in the right place." You can usually judge an NCO by the confidence his men have in him and from this I'd say that Sgt Kirk was a leader among leaders, and a man among men. I know, from just the short days that I spent with him, that when the fight came he was at the front taking care of his men and fighting the fight, and that sadly when the casualty details eventually came out that he would be among the fallen. When times go bad its men like Sgt Kirk that lead the way to fixing things, and sometimes we lose them as a result. But rest assured that when a man like him goes down it inspires a whole new generation of men just like him. My heartfelt condolences to Sgt Kirk's friends and family, and as we mourn him I hope you can find solace in the words of General George S Patton, a man who also served the US Cavalry as Sgt Kirk did, "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived"...

My deepest heartfelt condolences go to the freinds and the Kirk family. God bless you in this difficult time.

James Kirk, I thank you for your service to this country, and to all of us. Your sacrifice is not unnoticed.