A memorial service with full military honors will be held Tuesday — the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — at Punchbowl cemetery for a Navy sailor with Hawaii ties who was killed last month in the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter in Afghanistan.
Petty Officer 1st Class Sean P. Carson, 32, an explosive ordnance disposal technician, previously deployed to Iraq and was nearing the end of his assignment to Afghanistan when he was killed Aug. 16 northeast of Kandahar.
He was expected to be back home in San Diego with his wife, Nicole, and 4-year-old daughter, Leila, on Wednesday. Instead, Nicole Carson is attempting to cope with his loss.
The memorial service, with a rifle salute and taps, will be at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The service is open to the public, the family said.
"I did choose to have it on that day because of what happened on Sept. 11," said Nicole Carson, who was born and raised in Hawaii. "Sean had deployed twice because of his job. It seemed fitting to me that he should be remembered amongst the many, many others that have lost their lives in this war."
The attacks on the World Trade Center led to retaliation against al-Qaida leaders and the Taliban in Afghanistan in what has become America’s longest war.
The four-man crew of the Black Hawk from Schofield Barracks was killed in the Aug. 16 crash along with Carson, two Navy SEALs and four Afghans.
Nicole Carson stayed in Hawaii while Sean was in Afghanistan, and the family would make at least two trips here each year when he wasn’t deployed.
He was based at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay from 2001 to 2004.
Nicole Carson plans to scatter her husband’s ashes in a private ceremony at Leftovers surf break on the North Shore, one of his favorite spots.
