#Roommates, very sad news to report, as a young soldier from Chicago was one of the Americans killed in the recent raid in Kenya—which is said to be an extremist attack.
The family of 23-year-old Henry “Mitch” Mayfield Jr., a United States army specialist from south suburban Hazel Crest, confirm that he was sadly killed in a recent raid in Kenya. According to reports, the raid occurred in the early morning hours of January 5th at Manda Bay Airfield, a joint base shared by both U.S. and Kenyan forces near Nairobi, Kenya.
Mayfield Jr. was a fairly new soldier, as he only joined the armed forces in June 2018 following his studies at Northern Illinois University. Military officials said the attack that killed Mayfield Jr. and two other Americans continued for several hours, with U.S. and Kenyan forces teaming up to repel the raiders.
His mother Carmoneta Horton-Mayfield wrote an emotional post on Facebook, thanking everyone for their thoughts and prayers for both her and her husband’s tragic loss. While Mayfield Jr.’s immediate family members were understandably too emotional to speak to local media outlets, the family’s neighbor Isaac Wiseman expressed his heartfelt sentiments about the news.
Wiseman said:
“Outstanding young man, always polite, always just very nice. It’s breaking my heart. It really is, it’s breaking my heart. I just saw him this summer. I don’t have words to say. It’s just breaking my heart.”
Army veteran Rochelle Crump, President of National Women Veterans United and also a family neighbor, had similar feelings about the heartbreaking news:
“Too often we’re hearing this, but we don’t take it lightly. When we lose one, it affects every last one of us. Knowing that we’ve lost one, we have to come together to support that family.”
We want to send our thoughts and prayers to the Mayfield family.
Roommates, what are your thoughts on this?
